sinziana-maria

Congo Visa Ordeal and Precious Victory

2011-09-16T07:22:00.000-07:00

I had given up hope that this day would actually come, when I would see my passport again…

Although I had been warned that Congo work visa takes weeks to be issued – and I was clearly up for a looong wait – lately I had started to believe in some sort of a bad karma regarding my passport and this whole visa issue. Now, 76 days after I last entered Congo, I finally have this document in my hands again, and I can finally start BREATHING properly.

There are a million and then some reasons why this takes so very long. On paper, the Direction Migration Generale (DGM) in Kinshasa is supposed to issue the $475 work visa in 15 days. In practice, it normally takes at least twice as long, since it has to go to many offices and depends on many bureacrats’ caprices. It didn’t help, of course, that our logs people delayed depositing my passport for more than 10 days after my arrival on July 2 (when they should have done it within 2 days, to avoid an initial fine). As impatient as I was about this back then, I have in the meantime come to terms with the fact that there is always confusion among my colleagues, as to why I am “Kinshasa staff based in Goma”, and that it takes a long time for them to agree on what procedures and codes I should be assigned to.

Anyhow, days after they finally gave my passport to the Kinshasa DGM, I was issued a fancy document stating that I am to pay more than $3,000 fine. The reason? Well, it goes back to my last year’s job, when I had a work visa in Rwanda (since I was based there), and then two six-month-visitor Congo visas issued by the Goma DGM (each of them costing $475). Apparently, though, Kinshasa DGM does not recognize Goma DGM (?!), and their claim was that I therefore worked illegally in Congo all past year. Another frantic episode started, with my former employer issuing explanatory letters and my current employer hiring a lawyer. Nothing helped, of course, especially as the Kinshasa DGM was already smelling the money. In the end they negotiated the fine down to $1,500, and my new NGO did pay up (God bless them, they actually had nothing to do with that…). The only good thing that came out of this: a realization on everyone’s part that in future similar cases the person in question “had better lose their passports” ahead of returning to Congo with a Goma-issued visa, and “start fresh” in Kinshasa (everything is done manually, anyhow, so no computer records will show previous visas)…

However, back to my case -- and another four weeks had lapsed. In the meantime, I had started to get seriously worried: one about my very old grandmother (if something had happened to her I would have been unable to leave this country), but also about my own situation: as Goma offers zero medical care (apart from a MONUSCO emergency point that we are officially NOT authorized to use), in any case of serious illness I would have been stuck here. Not to mention, of course, all the evacuation alerts for security reasons, which would have made my leaving also very difficult, if not impossible. Add to that a daily frustration that had been eating slowly at me: I live just 5 minutes on foot from the Rwanda border, and I was counting on crossing loads, for a more normal life grasp and also to see all my dear friends (and cat) left behind, but every day I had to suck it up and let go of that illusion a little bit more…

As August was also drawing to an end, my impatience was really mounting. Numerous calls and emails remained answered, until last Friday when our rather inept otherwise visa-liaison person called me up with the good news: “The visa is stamped in your passport. But now la guerre commence avec Finance.”

What guerre? Well, it goes, apparently, along these lines: every NGO pays the $475 for each passport deposited, but apparently the DGM finance guy(s) run a bit of a separate business with that cash, counting on the fact that it’ll take weeks before those visas will actually be issued. It was the same now – visa was finally in the passport, but the money to pay for it was nowhere (although it had been deposited on July 15 already). This way, I would have to wait until another file came before the DGM, so that another poor bastard’s passport will be stuck for weeks while THAT money was transferred to my case.

Of course, when you feel like you’re so close the incertitude is even more upsetting. The whole week I fussed around, also because I was supposed to book my obligatory R&R flights for this month (and had heard horror stories of people whose visas had not been issued in time for the R&R, so the passport had to be taken out from the DGM and then resubmitted, for another 3-month ordeal to begin). In this frenzy I even took the risk and bought my flights online yesterday, counting on some miracle (or, rather, on some universal benediction to be bestowed upon me).

And then, this morning, I opened my emails and there it was: the passport had been released last night and already sent on the UN flight to Goma this morning, with some MONUSCO general named Bruno. I rushed down the stairs to ask our liaison guy here to please go find Bruno at the airport when the plane lands and finally retrieve my most longed-for possession ever. I could hardly concentrate all morning, spinning around and smelling the freedom ever closer.

At 14.30 this afternoon I was victoriously holding my barely-legible-by-now-Romanian passport, and ever since then I’ve been feeling on top of the world! It is only now that all those repressed fears actually became real in retrospect (considering that Congo, of ALL places, in not a country you’d like to be stuck for ANY reason, let alone medical or security)…

Almost in disbelief, I am now flipping through the many pages stamped and noticing the following: 1. They issued me a wrong visa which is now ‘annulled’; 2. The current visa is valid until Sept. 2014, so now I really should decide to stay for 3 years in Congo; 3. The visa will actually only be valid if I exit the country within the first three months, otherwise it becomes void (?); 4. The visa needs to be renewed 7 months (?!); 5. There is no picture of mine attached (although I was asked to give 4 to the DGM).

In short – all things that make sense….Tonight, though, I have just one thing on my mind: celebrating!!!! (would love to pop some champagne rose open…). OK, and maybe buying everyone (including all incompetents, it does not matter anymore) lots of drinks. And, maybe, finding Bruno and thanking him for the amazing delivery.

And then, tomorrow, as I will wake up with a heavy head, I will crawl to the border to hop back and forth a few times. Freedom is priceless!

Kalemie Blues

2011-09-08T07:43:00.000-07:00

I am writing this in the ‘waiting room’ at Kalemie MONUSCO Airport, where I am waiting for the only weekly flight out to stop by at some point today and get me to Goma. As I approached the gate this morning, the guard quickly showed up to check my name on the list. He actually had a few lists tucked in one folder, as Thursday seems to be the magic day here: all rare flights from and to all directions converge in Kalemie so that passengers can swap planes. The guard flipped through all the lists, but he somehow only found one Suzanne and one Charlize, and I kept trying to convince him that I was neither. When he was just about ready to dictate I should go back, I caught glimpse of a tiny table at the bottom of one of the lists. There, in all majesty, stood my name! Surprisingly, too, there were no mistakes!!! (Last two times I flew to and from Kinshasa, I was recorded as Silviana-Maria – with no family name – and on the way back Sinziana Demain – which prompted comments after comments when they finally caught on). This time – wow – I was there, with all my three names all spelled out correctly. I was really happy for some 5 seconds, until I discovered how I was registered under nationality: Italian. Why and how come – totally beyond me. I guess someone might have just guessed my nationality according to the sounding of my name… Oh well, I could live with that, and so could the guard, so here I was granted passage in this open-air barrack. Not before I was informed that I would be the only passenger to board here (hopefully not the only passenger on the plane, though…) These flights usually go in circles- i.e. Goma-Kalemie-Kindu-Bukavu-Goma, so I am thinking more stranded people in all these places would join my flying adventure today.

As MONUSCO-Benin contingent soldiers are crowding the area, and one NGO and UN car after another comes by Tanganyika Lake shore and then through the gravel yard to drop off other passengers, I am already getting the blues for this place, where I now spent one full week. Maybe it is just the element of total surprise that I experienced here, or maybe the great feeling of normality (which I have not found anywhere else in Congo) that got to me, but I REALLY, REALLY had a great time in this God forsaken place. Of course, the fact that I lived in a beautiful house right on the lake, AND that I could take loooong walks on the beach, made this week very special indeed.

The one “big challenge” I experienced: finding a place to swim without having hundreds of people congregate around or follow me in the water (mzungus are a rarity around here, and even more so girls in bikinis, I would imagine). Even at 6 a.m. (during the most spectacular sunrises I have ever seen at the beach), or at 6 p.m. (as darkness falls abruptly), the beach is usually swamped: fishermen with all sorts of tools (including mosquito nets for the tiny prey); people washing themselves or tons of clothes; kids playing in the very shallow water; women loading massive sand sacks and then swiftly balancing them on their heads to walk all the way into town; boys coming with the yellow plastic containers to get water for all household necessities (including drinking, of course…) It really is one of those places where the Lake gives life and death at the same time, considering all the many diseases that get carried back and forth through this “good-for-all” water…

Of course the week was not just fun-in-the-sun, but mainly incredibly intense field work. Inland, I visited scores of villages and talked to tens of people about every single aspect of their lives: family, education, health, development… I visited school and clinics, mills and markets. For the first time in my life I saw cholera emergency camps set up (no patients, though, at this time … a surge is expected soon, once the rainy season begins). Also for the first time ever I was in a camp for Internally Displaced People (IDPs), coming mostly from the neighboring provinces where rebels and army alike constantly threaten and destroy people’s lives. It was one of the harshest moments I have ever experienced, witnessing all the misery, disease, poverty and hopelessness…

As my life constantly balances between the lowest of the low, in the world’s most backward country, and the ultimate luxury I am actually bestowed upon, I cannot be thankful enough for seeing and living it all. Kalemie was by no means an exception. A completely astonishing week now comes to the end, and I can say this much: I have never been happier and more fulfilled in my new job than now!

The Pearl of Tanganyika

2011-09-04T12:27:00.000-07:00

I will definitely remember the first fall days of 2011 by this most full of surprises visit I have embarked on in Congo: the nearly forgotten town of Kalemie. Back in colonial times, the Belgians had named it “The Pearl of Tanganyika”, since its strategic location - pretty much half way down Africa’s deepest lake – made it an invaluable resource. They built up a very important harbor here, where the trains with precious ores from Zambia (then Rhodesia) and Lubumbashi (the largest Congo city in this province, Katanga), were swiftly exchanging with merchandise coming by boat from Tanzania. A traffic hub it would have been, in today’s terms… Only that its present certainly does not live up to its illustrious past.

Not that Kalemie has had a positive history all throughout. Even before the Belgians arrived, the Arabs were wreaking havoc here with their slave trade. Then Livingstone and later on Stanley used Kalemie as a strategic base for their expeditions – the latter of which eventually led to the brutal colonization of Congo. At all times, however, this lake-shore town was well known and had its clearly marked spot on the map.

Today, following the total collapse of the Congolese state at all levels and the many wars and rebellions plaguing this country, Kalemie is a no-name. Further up East, where I am based, every property houses an NGO, but here, as the situation is now ‘calm’, not even the humanitarian workers crowd to establish their presence. MONUSCO also, with a battalion of Beninois, has a much smaller mission and mandate than in other parts of Congo. Kalemie, if anything, is marked only as a stop-over on UN flights from Goma or Bukavu to Lubumbashi.

My self-awarded mission here, of a forced 7-days due to the rare flights in-and-out, was therefore something of a conundrum. We have a lot of programs in the region, and my main interest was going to be education around the beginning of the new school year, but beyond that I was anticipating a bit of a bore. Little did I know that this place was going to take me by complete surprise – in the BEST way possible.

Already from the airport, driving the 6 kms. into town, I felt like I had landed not in a different province but in a different country. Surely, the scenery was completely special – the type of Vama Veche in Romania crossed with Monterrico in Guatemala, if I could combine two past experiences on different continents to define a place in Africa… Or, in another way -- the type of climate and easy-goingness that you can ONLY find in seaside/lakeside places. But it was something else that completely shook me. It took me a few hours to put my finger on it, but then I finally grasped it: it was a sense of NORMALITY, which I had not experienced anywhere else in this mad country. Despite the many apparent difficulties people act calmly, and life here is really established. Anywhere else, in the neighboring provinces, this would be a dream, considering their horrible chaotic state due to so many stages of wars and uprisings, with or without a cause and finality. The fact that very mean-looking soldiers and rebels are NOT pacing the town everywhere makes a HUGE difference, of course, and gives the people a chance to breathe and go about their daily businesses in a much more casual, tranquil way.

That AND the stunning beauty of the region – from perfect coastline into savannah and then the bush - should be enough arguments to have tourism flourish here one day. I can only imagine boats crossing from Tanzania, and then tourists embarking on some-day-hopefully-again functioning trains to start their adventure journeys inland, to the heart of Congo’s majestic rain forest. For now, though, a mzungu in town is a rarity, as I have observed over the past four days, and anything catered towards public service is virtually non-existent or completely run-down.

That said, I have had great company. As our American chef-de-mission is on vacation, I am left to share the lakeside house with five African expat men, from Cote d’Ivoire, Benin, Cameroon, Kenya and Tanzania. Incredibly respectful and fun, they have really made it their mission to take good care of me. I feel, again, quite humbled by Africa’s hospitality and charm. To me, the Pearl of Tanganyika certainly merits its name, and then some!

Keeping Fit

2011-08-30T23:38:00.000-07:00

When I gave up my wonderful forest job from last year and I took on this amazing new position with a humanitarian aid organization, I knew changes would come in all shapes or forms. And it was what I happily embraced too, as I was certainly looking for another challenge in Africa. One thing was bothering me, though: I knew that security rules would be much stricter, and that in many places where we work I would not even be allowed to go anywhere on foot (walking being one of my all-time hobbies and definitely a huge need). I was already beginning to wonder how I would keep in some sort of shape (last year in Rwanda the gorilla hikes were more than sufficient, but now ‘field work’ means being taken by car pretty much everywhere.)

My one big hope was that I’d play lots of basketball on my friends’ private court, by the lake. It is one of the most beautiful houses here in Goma, and the family is just wonderfully hospitable. But the place lies pretty much at the other end of town (not that Goma is that big, but with the potholed road and the traffic jams it takes about 25-30 mins. one way, which is not something I would do every day, especially as it gets dark here around 6.30 p.m.). It is more of a weekend activity now, when basketball is usually followed up by dinner and drinks and other fun things. By the time I have to locate one of my drivers to come pick me up it is usually (very) late at night, so they must think I exercise very professionally (although I always shower and change there, which means I leave the house in sneakers and I come back in cocktail dresses and heels).

Clearly this was not going to be sustainable for my becoming and keeping fit on a regular basis, so I had to look for an alternative. The only well-equipped hotel gym in town is Karibu (i.e. ‘welcome’ in Swahili), which lies even further out on the lake, and which is prohibitively expensive, so that would not do. Luckily, just a few minutes’ walk from our house (a walk we can take only during daytime, of course) we have the luxury of the MONUSCO gym – which I can now access for $20/month, as I belong to an NGO doing humanitarian work in Congo.

Walking there, by the only stretch of lake still open in Goma, is really spectacular, especially as the time coincides pretty much with sunset every late afternoon. I usually get completely fascinated by the ocean-like views and I only look up when the road curves from next to the lake towards ‘centre ville’. There, in an isolated high-rise watch post, the blue helmet of the Uruguayan sentinel shows up from banana leaves. MONUSCO compound starts right there and then expands into lots of boring-looking pre-fabricated white buildings, clearly marked and very well guarded.

The first time I went there (end of July), I was quite worked-up about all the formalities at the entrance and a bit apprehensive about being the one non-regular gym goer among – well - professional soldiers… By now, I have already made ‘friends’ with every single Congolese guard at the entrance -- there are loads, and I am not sure exactly what each of them does other than sitting around, but they all want to seem important when they take my work badge and give me a visitor badge and enter tons of numbers on some check-in book. Of course they are slow, and they make mistakes all the time, but they are endearing, and now they call me up from the road already, “Karibu, Sinziana Maria!”

Once I leave the guards idle behind, I pass into a narrow corridor with a screening machine on the right (that either doesn’t work or that is deemed useless, since I was never asked to go through it). A few meters afterwards I have to cross a garden, where to the left a ton of soldiers always hang out – unfortunately, until now, we have only come to the stage where we mumble something between ‘hi’ and ‘hola’ to each other, and then they stay staring at my back as I make my way to the gym, some 30 meters to the right.

I think ANY gym in the world would ask BIIIG bucks if it had this location: above a terraced garden, with full view on the lake. It is just incredible to hop on a bike there and have this waterway at your feet. I many times let my thoughts run with the waves – so much so that once, after some 30 minutes, I thought I was actually rowing rather than biking. As the sun then sets, and the lake slowly disappears, all that is left to see is our own reflection in the big windows and the blue helmet of the sentinel in the garden corner – now slightly turned from the road towards the gym, to catch a glimpse of the excited action… The other times of the day when I went there - some Saturday mornings when I could not sleep in - I just took the lake in for the whole hour, feeling really lucky and blessed for such a life.

That said, the machines are almost completely run-down (none of them is plugged, so you cannot program anything, and so you just keep going at whatever rhythm you can work yourself into). That means that most people who come over – and who are, as predicted, either professional military or some real fitness freaks – go for the serious weight-lifting and other installations the looks of which totally scared me at the beginning (I should add here that I am SO NOT a gym person, actually, and that I never really went to these things more than a few random times here and there…)

With my Italian colleagues and housemates Viviana and Marco I chose, instead, to join the aerobics classes three times a week – which draw a ton of more regular people, of course. Placide, our instructor, is this really nicely built (how else?) Congolese, whose routine excited me at first, but who seems to be running out of many new ideas (or music tracks) as the weeks go by. I will not complain, though, as I am enjoying my getting (and keeping, hopefully) in shape a lot! Truth be told I kind of limp around (both here and on the basketball court), as I injured an ankle months ago and have not had the wisdom or the patience to tend to it properly.

The gym has also given me the chance to meet pretty much all the other mzungus in town I had not already met before. We are really not that big a bunch, so ‘gym types’ have already emerged pretty clearly: the power woman, who just paces around with insanely heavy weights; the fighter, who just kicks this boxing bag with a fury and then throws himself to the ground in an incredible sweaty puddle; the do-it-all guy, who seems to be moving among machines at an incredible speed, while displaying his muscles very consciously (and who, just last night, invited me out for dinner, even if we never really said more than ‘hi’ to each other…); the bicycle lady – a Romanian girl, in fact, whom I had befriended on FB but had never met in person, until she recognized my ‘Romanianess’ at the gym, sometime during her one-hour + frantic biking…

In a bizarre way, the fact that I paid for this monthly gym pass makes me feel more grounded in Goma than anything else. Hope it helps the home-like feeling grow, keep my mood happy and body healthy…

Food Cravings and Woes

2011-08-25T02:25:00.000-07:00

Of all the cuisines I have tasted around the world, traditional African cuisine will easily earn the last spot in my book. It is definitely unrefined, mostly heavy, and just about boring altogether, with a few dishes repeated to nausea: brochettes (meat skewers, which when are good are excellent, but one can only have so many brochettes…); samosas (a sort of fried dumplings, filled mostly with minced meat, which, again, are incredibly heavy and tend to get boring after a while); fried fish (a great addition when you live next to the lake); boiled potatoes; fufu (a sort of tasteless porridge, that they make either out of manioc or maize flour); hard boiled corn; creamy soups (which are to be found on all hotel buffets); some undefined veggie-grassy mixes; and other occasional foods that mostly float in reddish palm oil. If and when you want diversity, the few popular places would offer pizzas and pasta, croques monsieur and madame (this last recipe changes all the time, so the element of surprise is always there), and delicious fruits and veggies (which are in abundance, of course, but which for some reason are not at all popular with the locals – one explanation for this that I heard in East Congo goes back to colonial times, when the whites apparently indulged in these things while the blacks developed a strong cultural resistance.)

Overall, though, I should not complain, as both last year in Rwanda and this year in Congo we have had AMAZING house cooks, who have tried to appease the tastes of us difficult mzungus with ‘weird’ things, such as tender meats, clear soups, plenty of fruits and veggies, and delightful quiches and pies and cakes and soufflés, all nicely garnished and incredibly tasty. I have also been quite lucky to live with and around Italians, so high quality pasta, cappuccinos, and the best risottos of my life have been regulars on my diet.

That said, when you end up in a big city such as Kigali or Kinshasa, diverse cuisines are huge draws. Last year, on such occasions, I would splurge on FANTASTIC Chinese and Moroccan, while this summer I discovered the stunning cossa-cossa - the gigantic Congo River prawns that just about feel like heaven (I keep wondering, however, how come Kinshasa has not given in to a sort of African paella, I bet it would be a huge hit over there…)

In any event, this time around, doomed to spend two weeks in that fascinating but ultimately terrible big city, I thought I would at least indulge in whatever crazy food experiences I could get. Forewarned they would cost an arm and a leg, I was happy I would at least get per-diems to offset some of these costs (and started dreaming even more avidly of New York, and its amazing food scene at a fraction of the prices here…)

The first try was a Chinese restaurant, in the company of a Romanian SECU guy. He thought he knew its location by heart (somewhere behind the Greek orthodox church (?!)), but there we could only find a Greek restaurant, where life was in full swing. When we inquired about the Chinese brothers, they pointed to an obscure building, and said “Ils n’ont pas d’electricite!” We were not quite sure whether this was sabotage a la grec, or whether the poor Chinese really didn’t have money to pay for their power bill, but we did get out of there and drove to another Chinese restaurant on the main boulevard.Unfortunately, by the time we got there the cool things on the buffet were mostly gone, and while waiting for the second round of cossa-cossa to come up I stuffed myself with some rather bland sweet-and-sour pork and rice. Luckily, delicious steamed dumplings arrived in the meantime, and I pretty much claimed the whole pot to myself (in repeated trips to the buffet table, under the rather disapproving looks of the unfriendly Chinese serving staff).

The second culinary extravagance started one late weekend evening, by an amazing pool, where I ordered croquettes. I am never quite sure what they are made of (in Romania they would be mashed potato-based, while in Spain I had them ham-based). Of course the Congolese staff had no clue, so I was served these three mysterious little balls for 10 euros (bizarre even that the menu was priced in euros, not dollars, like everything else is in Africa.) From inside the deep-fried coat, some delicious saucy contents reversed onto my plate, and with the obligatory pilly-pilly (chilli) sauce a cote the croquettes were actually very tasty.

We then moved for the main meal, in a posh restaurant, where I just took some over-fried spring rolls and beer, while my friend tasted the Antelope a la Portuguese (?!) -- which resembled veal in some undefined Asian cuisine, apart from the fact that it was drowning in cheap red wine. The African counterpart -- Antelope a la Congolaise -- would have been served, instead, with sauce béarnaise (again, we had to pause and wonder what the connection was?!) In the end it didn’t matter so much, as I was more interested in the Real-Barca game we were there to see, and which, for the …th time, was going to make me supremely happy.

The next interesting food experience was over a business lunch at this Lebanese place called Belle Vue. I assumed it would be ‘just’ a restaurant, but I discovered that in fact it was a whole upscale compound, clearly belonging to some VERY rich people. Apart from several tennis courts, a grand swimming pool, residences and beautiful gardens, the restaurant itself seemed like a castle out of some Middle-East fairytale: a huge banquet hall, with velvet-clad chairs and heavy drapes, where the AC was obviously blasting; some extravagant chandeliers, dropping almost to the marble floors; ceiling-high paintings and carpets, all telling of some heroic tales hundreds of years ago and thousands of miles away; and an out-of-this-world staircase, rolling up to the first floor, where huge mirrors dwarfed me … All quite surreal, of course, in the middle of a hot, dusty, traffic-alienating Kinshasa day… The even more surprising thing was the menu: in fact, a fast-food menu dressed up nicely, where some very regular falafel, tabuleh and mint tea were quite cruelly priced, of course…

After all these random meals I was still yearning, though, for THE food: Japanese. Encouraged after an excellent sushi experience in Nairobi, I started scouting for ‘the best Japanese restaurant’ in Kinshasa, and when several people recommended Acachia I knew I had to try it. I sort of overlooked the second part of the recommendation, though – that this fusion place offered much better Korean than Japanese dishes, since, well, the owner was Korean. I also preferred to forget that Korean food was never really my favorite (I only once LOOOOVED it, in NYC of course, when spicy calamari just made it into my heart FOREVER).

In my craving I was quickly joined by another mzungu sort-of-new-in-town, so we decided we would have a wonderful sushi evening ahead of the return Barca-Real game, a mere couple of days after the previous one. As I was the first to arrive, I was received with numerous awkward bows by the entire African staff, yielding to some approximate Asian polite coutumes, and I was taken into the big dining room, where I discovered I was really the first one. The room was decorated with some giant wooden violin-shaped liquor cabinets (reminding me of Mozart kugelns), a large green painting with some unidentifiable exotic birds, and a big plasma TV showing some English Premier League game, all to the tunes of disco music from the 80s. As I was trying to find the perfect table (i.e. away from the AC), I noticed that the entire polite staff had retreated without a trace. I then remembered that the cool thing everyone professed about this place was the table bell – a button which you would press every time you’d like to be served. And which, by God, was the one thing keeping me in the good mood that night.

I pressed that bell many times, for good or just silly reasons, and I loved every single ring. As for the sushi – well, here’s what I actually got: a rainbow roll for $21 (!), which deserved its name to the fullest, as I believe they rolled in it whatever they found in the kitchen. Among them-not-so-sushi-items: kimchi (the fermented Korean veggies); mayo; coconut flakes (which at the beginning I mistook for Parmesan); and another unidentified sweetish brown sauce. The things that DIDN’T come with it: wasabi and ginger... Following the same model, the sweet potato tempura came without any special tempura sauce (whose missing earned another bell ring, and another ‘Il n’y en a pas’ answer). My friend, instead, went for the tiniest maki roll in the world (the pieces were literally as slim as my pinkie finger) and for some Korean dish, which, he vowed, tasted like the most sordid Chinese food he ever had in NYC (and NOT in Chinatown)… Luckily they had LARGE Skol beers (again, very different from the Romanian Skol, but not bad), so it was not a total $60 fiasco… At the end, I felt the urge to ring the bell one last time, and I gave my friend the occasion to address the waitress who showed up quite bewildered by these very demanding customers (we continued being the only ones throughout the evening). “Could you please give the chef our utmost gratitude for this delicious meal,” my friend said, while I was hardly containing my nervous-liberating laugh attack.

It was definitely time to get out of there and change venues for the game. A new Congolese friend suggested we meet at Bingo, this massive fast-food/shisha-smoke-filled betting alley, where they had Coronas and ice cream! Wow, two other treats that I had missed dearly! Not sure, though, what process these had also gone through, as the Corona tasted NOTHING like THE Corona, and the ice-cream was just frozen colorful icicles… Luckily Messi saved the night again – how else? – and all food woes were immediately put behind us.

The very last night in Kinshasa I gave croquettes another try, at Opoeta, and they were again delicious, although very different from the previous ones (but of course!). Also, as my Romanian friend was indulging in little frog legs, I decided it was finally time to break that last food taboo – and I absolutely LOVED them!!! Together with the surprisingly good moelleux that my hotel Sultani serves, and which I ordered pretty much every night, these were definitely the highlight of the Kinshasa food spree I had - only relatively successfully - embarked on.

Spicing Up the Dusty Life

2011-08-17T05:54:00.000-07:00

Across this mega-country, between Goma and Kinshasa, and the craziest 10 days at work so far, a couple of random episodes certainly stand out.

THE PARTY. Goma is famous for its party scene, especially in the summer, when all the cool Congolese and metisses descend upon town from whatever fancy places around the world they live in. This August would be no exception, and last couple of weeks’ buzz was all about this legendary annual party, ‘which you MUST go to’, if only just to see the place. From the outside, of course, it was no more than a horrible gate, wrapped in barbed wire, on the most unassuming, lava damaged street I had ever been on, but once we penetrated the walls the stylish mystique began to unveil. First, we had to drive for a few minutes through this mesmerizing park (the classic park idea, which in Africa is not really translated into practice anywhere), and then start on foot on a long row of steps down towards the lawn and the water. WHAT A PLACE! It is sooo hard to reconcile a property like this with the derelict plage du people, which is just down the lake, and where poverty and filth are thriving. Here, we were all of a sudden thrown into the Hamptons-like water front, with a cozy pool, a dance floor, a huge lawn, and, of course, a very rocky, inviting beach on Lake Kivu (the largest I had seen on either this or the Rwandan side). With the barbeque and open bar in full swing until dawn, and some of the most beautiful people I have ever hung out with, it was certainly the night to remember…

However, as much as the place was fabulous, to me the story behind it was even more captivating. The Belgian owners - apparently the most successful businesspeople in town – had bought this place for almost nothing from the family of another Belgian owner – who was so extravagant, that he was flying his private jet drunk all over East Congo, until he managed to crash into the lake never to be found again. In more recent times – i.e. this year – the property has, however, changed hands again, as apparently the president’s wife spotted it while on a trip to Goma and decided it would be hers for the modest price tag of $5 million. I am certainly curious now what the next party there will look like (assuming I will be THAT important to ever be invited back :D)

THE MOVIE. One of the things you have to forego when you come to this part of the world is going to the movies. Surely, movie evenings are organized on a regular basis, on cool screens in nice gardens, but the whole movie theater experience as we know it from back home is not a given here. That is why I was totally taken with the suggestion of a new friend I made in Kinshasa to go to the movies on Sunday at 3 p.m. When she only picked me up at 3.15 I was wondering what had gone wrong, but then she explained there was a twist (or rather several twists) to this ‘2nd floor underground’ theater as well: advertised only online, so that they would not pay taxes, it would basically suggest a time and a movie, but then be open to any kinds of changes desired by the audience. Since the two of us and another two friends WERE the audience, we had no trouble showing up almost at 4 p.m., buy the $10 a piece ticket, and then be served Arthur in French – which none of us found amusing in the slightest… When we inquired what else would be available – well, they pretty much had every movie on the planet, all dubbed in French, so we had to make do with the only choice in English – The Adjustment Bureau. Cool Matt Damon provided our entertainment for the hot afternoon,in what would be THE movie memory of DRC in 2011.

We then chilled on another amazing property, watching the sunset by a fabulous pool, over expensive G&Ts and even more expensive croquettes, constantly warming up for the Real-Barca game late evening (which we watched in a hip restaurant, while trying out ‘Antelope a la Portuguese’?!). If only Kinshasa were not as dusty and just exhausting altogether this could certainly have been a slice of life in any big city I have ever visited before.

First Curfew

2011-08-03T07:42:00.000-07:00

After a month to the day in the DRC I finally went to my first field assignment - one that did not involve hanging out with VIPs in luxury hotels, but that was to include visits to remote sites in the North Kivu Province to see how the programs are actually acted out. My adrenaline was certainly mounting, building on an already high doses, due to the brilliant long weekend that I had spent half playing basketball half indulging in great foods and beers – all by the side of the beautiful lake, mostly in the company of the enchanting metisse Congolese.

So come Tuesday morning, rested and certainly curious, I joined our party of five and took off from Goma at about 10 a.m., in a convoy of two Land Rovers. The road north – which meanders through and next to the mighty Virunga National Park - used to be goudron in some better ages, but is now just one DEEP pot-hole after another. Yet, as it counts as the ‘main road’, it is quite heavily trafficked, as well as patrolled by the army up and down. The one thing you do not want – to be stuck behind some other vehicle, as the dust is really just overwhelming. We advanced however quite steadily for some 70kms., during which the biggest problem was losing phone reception in a couple of spots.

The most remarkable thing of the day, actually – passing through a Centre de Brassage at Rumangabo – where men of different armed groups (there are SO many in this region) now and then come to be integrated into the regular army (the barriers delineating ‘the good’ and ‘the bad’ armed people are quite blurry on many occasions, as slip-ups are certainly not uncommon). However, this center seemed like quite the established place – with dozens of living blocks (from the Belgian times, of course), where the military have brought their extensive families and now live in VERY large groups. Yesterday no one had any issues with us passing by the instruction camps (?!), so we continued on to ‘our’ villages, to visit local health centers.

It is one of those things that will just stick to your mind forever – the maternity and the post partum rooms. And, by God, if I had to give birth in one of those places I would definitely forfeit having children forever (of course, not an option for your regular Congolese woman…) We actually stumbled upon a whole pregnant-women gathering, and they were all so happy, and the small babies up on their backs so cute, that one could almost be mislead about the kinds of lives these people live…

Zigzagging through incredibly beautiful landscape we spent a few hours in different communities, only with a small break in the meantime, to have lunch at our beautiful house (yes, another beautiful house…) When we finally arrived to our regional office I found an email immediately requesting me to Kinshasa – so frantic calls back and forth resulted in a compromise: I would go early next week, and in the meantime take it sort of easy with my field work and go crazy with preparing materials for this mega-event coming up in Kinshasa.

The greatest part of the day was still to come though: the first curfew of my life. Scary and exciting at the same time, it conjured in my mind memories of a distant past in Romania, when all of us were gathered home, in the long winter evenings, without electricity. I came home on foot at 6, but since everyone else was still out and the only key to the house with someone else, I hung out with the guards among pomme-granate trees, learning some Swahili and giving solicited advice, in French, on contraception, to a guy who has 9 kids and would like to stop there...

At 6.30 we all got into the house, barred all doors, and prepared for a long evening, calling in with the radio room every so often to report that there is nothing to report. However, in all honesty, I was expecting something a tad more dramatic, but this curfew was actually just one fun, big evening, with colleagues from Italy, El Salvador, France and Guinea: an impromptu gym on our beautiful terrace (where I toned my muscles, aggravated an ankle twisted over the weekend and further injured my right knee), some Amstel sessions complemented with some Congo-style Spanish tortilla, a long chat with my Italian colleague (he is my house mate in Goma as well, but somehow we had to come all the way here to actually bond), and a fascinating Burkina Faso soap opera on TV (on which occasion I found out the VERY important fact that someone from that country is called a Burkinabé).

At 9.40 p.m. it felt like we had partied for weeks already, so I took to my small, cozy room, and sheltered under my very sexy blue mosquito net. With ear plugs on I slept all through the night – so I would have even been unaware of guns shots around -- which are apparently a common occurrence here, and therefore a main reason for our curfews…

Creepy Friday ahead of Long Weekend

2011-07-29T08:53:00.000-07:00

TGIF! Indeed, especially as I was just informed that we are going to have a long weekend (maybe too late to plan for anything when you find out about a Monday off on Friday at lunch, BUT certainly better than previously in Rwanda, where the government would issue some completely useless communiqué about free Mondays really late on Sunday nights…)

Not an easy Friday, though, as I took part in pretty much the scariest meeting ever: the OCHA security briefing. “OCHA is the part of the United Nations Secretariat responsible for bringing together humanitarian actors to ensure a coherent response to emergencies. OCHA also ensures there is a framework within which each actor can contribute to the overall response effort,” says their web site. And they are certainly an amazing resource when you work in some God forsaken places. Among many other things: they remind you, in a very formal setting, how dangerous everything is around you, and how exposed you actually are when you do your work.

Not that I didn’t know Eastern Congo was not safe… Quite on the contrary… But still, during my many trips on the road and by air in the past 12 months I have kept a certain faith that things were going to be alright. And I have basically put my life in the hands of our security staff, our partners and even the local population at times, when we were doing field work in the middle of nowhere. And yes, we do get daily regional briefings, and they are not cheerful at all, but there was something about today’s meeting that gave me the creeps beyond the usual.

Attacks, ambushes, road blocks, fights, banditry, displacements, disease outbreaks, killings, lootings, rapes – you name it, and it was on the list of ‘routine’ things that have taken place around here during the past seven days. An Indian MONUSCO officer came in and clinically detailed all of these incidents, their supposed causes, and their potential bigger fallouts. And then he recommended we stay out of certain routes and, when in certain communities, try to contain rumors about more impending attacks that are driving everyone crazy.

WHOA! Lots to take in, for sure!

And a bizarre, two-fold feeling too: on the one hand I was quite charged and motivated by the vibe around (this was the closest I’ve ever been to a ‘situation room’); on the other I saw my vulnerability maybe clearer than ever before.

It’ll certainly take more than a long weekend to digest all this. And more than a few Fridays to get casual about these kinds of meetings...

Boring - Think Again!

2011-07-26T23:56:00.000-07:00

I wanted to begin this post writing that by and large this week has been remarkably uninteresting. But then I paused to think that maybe my hyper life-style and sometimes very high expectations of myself and people/things around me should not mean that some ‘quieter’ days are boring. And then I realized that even my ‘quiet’ times are actually pretty incredible – even if sometimes, hearing the out-of-this-world stories of my colleagues and new friends here, I consider my own life pretty standard… Yes, I know, perspective shifts all the time. Sometime, when they throw in stories from all over the world about how they were evacuated, robbed at gun-point, lived in compounds or had their cars high-jacked, I go ‘wow!’ and I find not much more to add…

And then there comes a weekend – let’s say the first ‘slow’ weekend I would have spent since coming back to Africa, settling into my new house, etc. – and a last-minute begging-request from my former employer: that I help out (i.e. pretty much do the entire media part) of the finally happening gorilla transfer (the one which I was supposed to cover last June, and that was postponed MANY, many, many times). So here I was, working like a maniac both Saturday and Sunday, from 4.30 a.m. onwards, on the Goma side, seeing these beloved orphaned gorillas at long last being transported/airlifted from Rwanda back to Congo (where they had originally been confiscated from poachers). And what a wonderful, emotional time it was too, getting together with my former colleagues from Rwanda and also meeting some cool filmmakers, with very precious advice for my camera work. What also helped, esthetically, was that the helicopter pilot was quite a hot guy – unfortunately, though, I didn’t get a chance to fly off with him… My next post MUST have ‘frequent helicopter rides’ on the job description!

Once the whole frenzy was over, my body simply collapsed from last weeks’ fatigue (I suspect that the Goma dust clouds might have something to do with it as well, even if I am not allergic or particularly sensitive to these things)… It has also been quite difficult to sleep in, as loud birds start their morning rounds VERY early, and our Congolese house staff are also very diligent at sweeping the yard and sending radio messages at 6 a.m… Hardly being able to breathe I have sort of crawled through Monday and Tuesday, and I am now about to be picked up for a first field assignment, some 2-3 hours’ drive on a bad road… If by tonight I am feeling slightly more energetic I plan to embark on a NYC reminiscent experience: salsa dancing, with an Italian instructor, on the shores of the lake.

Wait, was I about to say my life was ‘uninteresting’?!?

Hanging Out with The Stars

2011-07-20T23:23:00.000-07:00

For the past week I’ve been waking up every morning in the amazing Orchid Hotel in Bukavu, overlooking from a high terraced garden the incredible lake, and then hanging out with the stars. Quite literally. And quite amazing for a first field assignment in this new job…

On paper I will be based in Goma (which is the most important town in the North Kivu region), but in practice I will be traveling pretty much all the time all over the place to see and write about the different programs we are running in this HUMONGOUS country. Bukavu is the capital of South Kivu, so last Saturday I took this short, two-hour, $50 trip on the speed boat (the normal, ‘popular’ boats take more than twice this time), deep in the heart of the most amazing scenery. The only other place I could somehow relate this to: the Norwegian Fjords, only with actually beautiful weather as a plus. The Kivu Lake is simply breathtaking, with small islands and mountainous shores, and with the tropical spin of banana plantations and amazing forest brushing the water. It is so spectacular that I developed a kind of boat-addiction from the very beginning, so during the week I hopped on our own speed boat a few times, both for pleasure and for traveling to remote islands and visit some of our health programs.

The reason why I actually traveled to Bukavu, though, was to entertain some Hollywood, NFL, Nascar and private sector stars, who have come together to find a project and save the Congo… Easy to do, right? Well, actually kind of wrong. This country is SO big and complex, and has such a twisted post-colonial history and so many actors at play on the ground, that a ‘REAL’ solution is just not within anyone’s grip. Our stars, however, have been adamant that they can do something beyond the obvious pattern, so it has been quite entertaining in turn to see their thought-process related to this, accompanied by the most interesting comments and questions: “So this land was Belgian, right? And then what?”; “We should invest in conflict-free wine and call it ‘Delicious’”(they don’t grow grapes in Congo); “There are so many pregnant women around here, were they all raped?” (Bukavu happens to be known also as ‘the rape capital’ of the world); “So we're here to see some refugee camps, why are they not on the schedule?” (because there are none…); “I was thinking a few months back that I’d like to drive around here, but I’m glad I changed my mind. Man, these roads are bad!”, etc. etc… It will definitely be interesting to see what they come up with in the end. So keep your eyes on the media in the coming months, and you will certainly hear/see some big names talking about saving the Congo!

As they are heading back to their luxury homes later today, I will also take the boat back to Goma and hopefully have a few days in the same place to get my head around this new job – which from now on will hopefully only involve stars with shiny solutions on a NOT regular basis... Luckily my luggage also arrived (both from Kinshasa and from Rwanda), so I can envisage a couple of days of unpacking and decorating my new home. Very down-to-earth, star-free environment, to recalibrate and start anew. (Although I must confess that I definitely got hooked on one starry thing: an exquisite Chanel diamond white ceramic watch – which I duly googled and found that it costs around $10,000)…

UN Flight Taking Me Back Home

2011-07-13T01:42:00.000-07:00

I have always had a thing for men in uniform (maybe not entirely coincidentally my two boyfriends were also more or less involved with their respective countries’ armies, although I rarely/never saw them in their officer attires). Anyhow, this could potentially be the one underlying explanation of why Eastern Congo does not entirely freak me out. In a space where there are hundreds of thousands of soldiers and numerous rebels belonging to God knows what factions, all carrying some pretty scary guns around and going on some terrible plundering/raping/killing sprees for any or no reason, I have managed to keep my emotions under control fairly easily. On top of it all, of course, there is the very large MONUSCO contingent (the largest anywhere in the world), trying to keep things relatively calm around here, so if you don’t bump into Congolese armed men then the Blue Helmets are certainly going to show up in your way pretty much wherever you turn.

However, I have never before been in a ‘military’ situation just like this morning, when in Kinshasa I was taken to the UN Terminal, to hopefully board a UNHAS (United Nations Humanitarian Assistance Service) flight to Goma. Backtracking for a second: my new employer, just like most major NGOs in Congo which have massive field operations requiring extensive travels, does not allow us to fly on any national carriers, given their horrible security record and measures. And, quite frankly, after the latest plane crash in Kisangani just a few days ago, I was quite happy to oblige and go for the safe UN flights. The only problem there: they are quite rare and extremely coveted, so more often than not the already exclusive people on the list get bumped and have to wait for another week or so until the next flight becomes available, as well as hope that no other more exclusive people called in all sorts of emergencies take over their seats again.

So yes, arriving at the small terminal I had strong doubts I’d be allowed to check in, but somehow this was my lucky Tuesday. After a couple of rather quick screens, during which I only had to present my new work-card and Ordre de Mission, I entered the waiting room only to find myself literally magnetizing the gazes of tens of men-in-uniforms, putting together the funnies looking ‘army’ ever: Nigerians, Chinese, Uruguayans, Egyptians, Congolese and Nepalese are the ones coming to mind now, some 12 hours later, when I can hardly believe that I was part of that scene. Too bad, however, that I had not quite anticipated that, so I was so NOT looking at my best (after being quite a knock-out in Kinshasa this past week) ;-) But so it happened that I was still a bit sleepy at 6.30 a.m., and wearing my field clothes since the rest of my luggage had been in the meantime shipped off by DHL (at a whopping price of $430 for 30 kgs).

With the burden of all those looks on me, which I clearly did not quite know how to handle, I thought I should keep myself busy and for starters decided to use the restroom. The ladies’ toilet, clearly marked, opened however with a urinal, which obviously threw me off balance even more. The next thing to do, after coming out of there quite startled, was to pace the big room and take a look at the strangest collection of posters I have ever seen: how to be safe around a helicopter; how to fight HIV stigma; how to approach the apron at the terminal; and, finally… how to take a UN flight. This last note was basically a list of all the things that had gone somewhat wrong with these flights in the last few months. Among them, bird attacks and humans crossing the runways to-and-from their fields just before planes landed. What was missing was a note about the UN plane that crashed in April (in which someone working for us actually perished), to give these ‘safe flights’ a more realistic touch…

Slowly, passengers for different destinations were called up front and handed a piece of paper acting as a boarding pass, and sadly it turned out that on my flight there were not going to be any men in uniform after all… Finally my turn came as well for the Kinshasa-Bukavu-Goma-Kananga-Kinshasa flight, and I boarded this really cute plane whose shape reminded me of a baby crocodile, with a really long, slender nose. It turned out it was actually a Mexican plane, and the crew consisted of the most endearing, chubby, middle-aged steward I have ever traveled with. He performed his duties in a rather homey manner as well, so I really totally enjoyed the flight, dozing off now and then and dreaming of Uruguayan soldiers.

When we landed in Bukavu, some three hours later, I felt how I was finally coming home, returning to the East after this crazy Africa criss-crossing from the past three weeks. I then came close to tears when we flew from Bukavu to Goma, over the most spectacular Lake Kivu landscape, and literally brushing by my dear Rwanda, of which I basically recognized every hill, hotel, beach. So close and yet so far, as upon arrival I actually handed my passport to some stranger who was returning to Kinshasa on the continuing flight, so that the guys at HQ could finally take it to immigration for my new work visa. I will henceforth be stuck in this country for at least two months, so God pray there’s no emergency or anything of the kind coming up!

Brilliant Day

2011-07-11T00:55:00.000-07:00

Just because so many people got seriously worried after my previous post - here’s a positive one. Since I was trapped in Kinshasa for the weekend, I decided it was time to go for the main three important things in a new place: sightseeing, shopping, eating.

Now, it was a bit difficult to go for the first one, since we are actually not allowed to go on foot anywhere in the city, apart from a gated area around the embassies, next to the mighty Congo River (i.e. the border with the other Congo). And sightseeing from the car – well, yes, you do see a lot of concrete on the massive Avenue 30 Juin and a lot of dust everywhere else, and you get it how great things were under Mobutu (!) when everything was working properly(?) And you do also catch a glimpse of the fantastic villas from the colonial times, and happy you are indeed when friends and friends of friends happen to know people living there, and when you are invited to multiple garden parties every single night. But eventually that excitement also wears off, and by Sunday morning I was really dying to move my legs. I cautiously took my big camera bag (knowing that I would probably not be able to take any pics, due to the MANY absurd restrictions here), and together with Sara, a colleague visiting from London, we asked the driver to take us to the ‘walk place’ at 9 a.m.

The moment we approached the river, on a beautiful street that reminded me so much of the promenade in Montreux on the Geneva Lake, few soldiers came up to us and started explaining this and that, until one actually said “you can go down to the river.” OK, that was unexpected. We left the high paved road and took a ton of run-down stairs until we actually came to the water. And there it was, the incredible, mythical, fascinating Fleuve Congo, that captured my imagination ever since I was a small child and heard tales of the frightful Heart of Darkness. Of course, on this particular stretch, where you have both capitals on opposite banks, the view is rather ‘civilized’, but when you think where this river – the deepest and second largest in the world - is coming from you do get the ultimate chills. It really is one of the most humbling sights I have ever laid my eyes on, and certainly the highlight of this week in Kinshasa.

Closely supervised by soldiers I was about ready to go back up, when one of them, having spotted my camera bag and smelling some dollars coming his way, very naturally suggested I take pictures. WHAT?!?! A soldier in Congo suggesting you take pictures!?!? And of the ONE place (the border) that all guide books and wise white people with vast Congo experience caution you against?!? OK, this was indeed a good Sunday morning. Still in disbelief, and quite nervous (I was actually thinking he’d take my camera at some point), I started flashing my Nikon left and right, in a sort of surreal excitement. The river was obedient, and calling, and of course all I could think of was floating away on it (apart from wanting to do the cross-country in the US and the trans-Siberian in Russia, the long trip on the Congo River from Kinshasa to Kisangani is right there, high on my priority list).

After the soldier expressly asked for money for coffee or beer, and we duly conformed, we felt like we had paid our way to take pics from the promenade as well. Bypassing only expats jogging and more soldiers guarding bushes and trees, we took this amazing walk, on which I came to think Kinshasa is really not THAT bad. Yes, it is outrageously EXPENSIVE, and FILTHY, and completely CHAOTIC, and just IRRATIONAL overall, but it does have the life, and the feel, and the grandeur, and the power of a really great city. And just when I was pondering on all that – here I was faced with the only other thing I always fantasized of in Congo: some sign with the Zaire name. It came to me from atop a very tall, ugly building, and the “Z” was obscured by a ladder, but no mistake – it was splashed there, for everyone entering the country from the port to see!!! Mobutu was indeed still alive, and probably dear to some people in that building, that the name he created for this country was still allowed. My faithful NIKON zoom did its job this time as well. And with this precious gem on my memory card, I really decided it was time to take off, before some other zealous official thought differently about our picture-taking spree.

The next thing on the agenda was shopping. The day before we had already purchased some pagne (the Congolese waxed-fabrics, in screaming colors), when our colleague Dorothy had arranged for us girls to go spend some money in some upscale shops, but today I really wanted to see the Marche Centrale. Unfortunately, though, it was a Sunday morning, and they were still far away from setting up and getting going, and I also kind of bowed to my own person wisdom giving me nudges (stop buying things, you cannot carry them, your bags are overflowing!), so instead we set up for this lovely road trip. We were going to see the bonobos!!!

For those of you who need some context: these guys, thought for a very long time to be some chimpanzee subspecies, are to be found only in the DRC, to the south of the Congo River, deep in tropical forest. I had heard lots of talks about them last year, since several of my gorilla colleagues had some experience with bonobos, but I had not seen them ever before. What I remembered best was something about their hyper sexuality – they basically have sex ALL the time, not only for reproduction but also for pleasure and for resolving conflicts in their society. The motto they are associated to, quite fittingly: “Make love, not war!”

We were certainly not going to see them in the wild, as that region is FAR, FAR away, and habituated bonobos are still not commonplace, so we went to this fantastic place just outside Kinshasa called Lola ya Bonobo (Paradise for Bonobos) – a very large forested sanctuary, where bonobos rescued from poachers are being rehabilitated. Of course, just like with gorillas or chimps, for every bonobo that has the luck to be saved and brought here, many others are killed, sold, eaten… But yes, it is a real jungle out there, and certainly not only for animals…

Some 60 bonobos are currently cared for here, in different fenced enclosures (but imagine that not as in a zoo-fenced, but as in a huge forest which has fences going throughout it). They are practically free to do whatever they want, but they are still closely monitored. The only thing that does not make any sense to me (coming from the Uber-strict gorilla world, where the human presence is sooo limited and heavily controlled): here there are basically no rules. Or, if there are, they are certainly not followed in any way. A bunch of school girls yesterday were about to feed the bonobos chips through the electric fence, when I just had to shout out. These guys are still supposed to be wild, and return to the wild some day (well, maybe), so any such close contact with humans can only be damaging. Then again, I was just a visitor there myself, so I had to get over my zealous over-protective attitudes and carry on.

It was, indeed, a delight seeing them. And not that I have anything against them having sex all the time (if anything, I applaud a species that has the guts and the time and the drive to do so), BUT there is one just about disgusting thing in this whole business: the female genital swellings, which obviously attract the other bonobos (males and females alike), but which to me looked like nothing more than gigantic tumors. Brrr. And quite frankly, even going beyond the looks – those things must make life SO incredibly uncomfortable. Quite a price to pay for being attractive...

But anyhow -- the bonobos are indeed adorable, and the long walk through the primary forest just what I needed and missed so much. And after such an active day, it was certainly time to delve into the next amazing Kinshasa has to offer: the Cossa Cossa.

They are, quite frankly, the best reason to come over here. The fantastic Congo River prawns, that I have had this week in all possible ways (with garlic, with pili-pili (chili sauce), on a ‘tropical skewer’ with pineapple and veggies, or in a casolette) are just divine. And yes, expensive, at an average of $25-30 a portion, so my finding Chez Philo, where they go for ‘only’ $15, was even more so a treat. I topped the day with a large Tembo beer (whose labels have fun, quick facts about Congolese history), and an actually very good moelleux (which is my all-time favorite desert, that I had had only in France, Belgium and NYC before), so I was indeed quite HAPPY for this brilliant Sunday in Kinshasa.

Bad Day

2011-07-06T12:58:00.000-07:00

I've had a bad day. Or maybe just a Congo day. Either way, I am exhausted and at 9 pm I am still not sure where I will sleep tonight.

It all started at our nice Sultani Hotel this morning, when our entire delegation (senior staff from every province) was basically kicked out to make place for - apparently - the South Korean presidential delegation. OK, I get political sensitivities and all, but I am outraged at our logistics guy, who seemed totally unfazed. His only reaction - throwing of all of our stuff in the back on a car, with an unknown destination TBD. I cannot even stress enough my utter annoyance, at the fact that I had to pack again my three + suitcases that I've been now living out of for more than 2 weeks, just to be told that on Friday morning we'd have to move yet again...

I thought I knew better, though, as I was totally planning to fly out to Goma on Friday, and I also thought I had made all arrangements for it (i.e. asking our extensive logistics team to book me a seat). When I arrived at the office they were all smiles, but soon they started punching the bad news. First, as we are only allowed to take UN flights, we are also only allowed to have 20 kg of luggage with us - and paying overweight simply won't do. I could not emphasize enough that I would want my luggage there WITH me, so a whole machinery started looking into DHL options to ship my stuff a day in advance of my flight (i.e. Thursday). Of course, as proforma for shipping came in, so came the other piece of fantastic news: I was totally cut off the Friday flight, and I was now looking at next Tuesday at best... In the meantime my passport was being taken to immigration but my work card was not yet ready, so I was in Kinshasa without identity, without accommodation, without luggage. Exactly what I had dreamed of in this mad city. Add to that the fact that yesterday, as I was using my personal Vaio for work, my charger fried, and the news was that no Sony chargers were to be found anywhere in Congo, and in the meantime they gave me this CRAP DELL with an impossible French keyboard, and all was just terrific. In the midst of all this I also had to reconfigure my entire schedule, as Mary, the girl that was supposed to give me an extensive briefing, had just gone gone down with malaria...

As meetings came and went, and as the evening was drawing closer, I was sort of becoming slightly impatient. The system we have here - with rotating drivers and cars - is all nice in principle, but certainly not that great during rush hour, when cars are totally stuck God knows where and the mobile phone networks simply do not work. So there I was, at 6.30 pm, frantically calling an unanswerable driver phone, while on the other line trying to find out at least what the name of the new hotel was. No real luck on either end, until someone rushed to our office and mentioned 'the bus was downstairs and all have to go now'. It turned out we had been rented a bus, that no one wanted to take in the end, since they were all about to go out. I was so tired, though, that I decided to get a lift. And there I was, all by myself in a 20-seater, that stumbled every 2 meters on the way to an unknown destination.

When we finally arrived to this no-name construction behind a thick fence I was really at the end of all my wits. A few guys came up from nowhere and showed me through a narrow hall to the reception window, and then through another narrow hall to my room - where, MIRACULOUSLY, all my bags (tagged an untagged?!) were waiting for me... In my delight, coupled with the excitement to see a really nice room, I almost overlooked the fact that the mosquitoes were literally swarming in there. When I was quite directly attacked, while still standing, and pointed to the guys that there was no moustiquaire and that I absolutely needed one, they were quick to rebut me "But why, there are absolutely no mosquitoes in here, as you can see!"

At that moment all I could do was get the hell out of there and ask for a large beer. And a moustiquaire and insect repellent. And surely, they did provide a Primus as well as some anti-insect canned product, which finished at the first attempted spraying. At the same time I was trying to negotiate for some dinner, and the best I could do was get a fried quarter of a chicken, with some rice and two tomato slices for 20 bucks. Clearly, this was NOT going to make me happy.

While I was waiting for my dinner in the nicely hidden garden, by the pool, I was duly informed that 'the technician' called to buy and fix the moustiquaire had defected. Just as well, I thought, as he was the tiniest man I had ever seen, trying to estimate how to deal with a problem hooked to a ceiling of at least 4 meters high, without any ladder or any tools. As I was biting into my delicious soso breast, I was also quite naturally courted by this fat, middle-aged Congolese man sitting at the next table. Small talk all you want, of course, I was thinking, until I almost choked when he mentioned he has just returned from... Maramures (the most picturesque part of Romania). Wait, WHAT?! He then went on a rant telling me how much Romanians and Congolese are like each other, because they prefer living in large groups. La Roumanie, c'est presque comme l'Afrique, he concluded, and that's when I decided it was time to go back to the mosquitoes.

After another round of negotiations with the reception guy, who took me to five other rooms to prove to me the 'no-mosquito show', I decided to take the first one anyhow, at least to try it out. With the disgusting AC at full blow, malaria-Mary on my mind, and three personal sprays at peak (intoxicating myself to begin with), I am now maybe contemplating to let myself pass out and just hope to wake up to a more normal day... Then again, when you sign up for Congo, you pretty much forgo any right to any claimed normality...

Jambo Kinshasa!

2011-07-03T12:09:00.000-07:00

I could not quite believe yesterday morning, when at the airport in Kenya my boarding pass said ‘Nairobi-Kinshasa’. But there I was, on my way to this mighty city, far, FAR away from any other place in Congo I had been to. The flight was actually quite funny: we first crossed over to the other Congo (the ‘French’ one), to drop off and pick people up in Brazzaville, and then went up again for the shortest ever flight of my life: 8 minutes to Kinshasa. That’s right. We simply crossed the Congo river by air, and landed in the ‘Belgian’ Congo around 10.30 a.m. All safe and good, apart from a minor frustration: it was so cloudy out there that I could not take any pictures (after repeatedly haggling for a window seat). There will be other opportunities, of course, JUST that in these countries you should take whatever you can whenever you can (before they take away your camera or attempt to arrest you for God knows what reason).

But here I was, and off I was going into the immigration hall. From my previous experiences at airports in Congo, and based on all sorts of stories I’ve heard about this airport in particular, I was expecting some kind of trouble with my visa, or my vaccination certificate, or my looks, or my attitude, or something. However, to my utter surprise, everything went as smoothly as it could have gone, and in a few minutes only I was out in the baggage claim area not quite believing my luck. This place reminded me of a huge sort of public toilet: pillars covered in blue, chipped tiles, supporting a rather low roof, and windows that have not been washed in probably a decade. The baggage belts were also quite a scene: many officials were jumping up and down on them, and then in and out through the little hole meant for luggage to appear through, so it took about forever to get some bags flowing. And when they finally did, I could not quite understand what they were all about: some hundreds of humongous packs meant for douane came first, which meant we had to wait some half an hour for our regular stuff to begin rolling. In the end there I was, with everything intact, ready to step out and look for my driver.

Henri was duly there, waiting for me with a big sign, and fitting me readily into a big jeep. He also presented me with a large information package -‘First 24 hours in Kinshasa’- and suggested we stop by the office first to get the duty phone which was waiting for me. Impressive organization, I must say! Add to all the smooth operations a fantastic drive for the first 20 minutes or so, and I was beginning to wonder how come Kinshasa has all the bad names associated to it.

And then we hit THE traffic. I thought I had seen the worst in Nairobi, but this was hardly comparable. The gigantic Avenue 30 Juin (named after the Congolese independence day) is basically this half newly renovated boulevard with some 4 lanes each way, synonymous with the land of grueling concrete. All trees were cut off to make place for additional lanes a short while back, so it’s like this massive airport take-off runaway surrounded by mobile markets and stranded people trying to cross everywhere (with very little chance at it too). And then, when you get stuck, you really get stuck, in such a way that it is quite physically impossible to figure out how to get out of it all. We thus did not move for the longest time, and my energy levels were dwindling at an alarming rate, so much so that when I was dropped off at the hotel I completely crashed in the hallway. It did not help the fact that the reception guy at the rather fancy Sultani Hotel insisted he had no reservation in my name, and that they were so full there was no way he would accommodate me. Some half an hour later they did manage to find my name somewhere, and miraculously I could choose among several free rooms available. I was so tired that I even allowed myself to accept a room without a mosquito net (“cause there are no mosquitoes here!” (?!) said the guy, and decided instead to use just some spray and some preventive AC). In the meantime, I ordered at the restaurant some $14 spinach cannelloni (the waitress said they’d be ready in 10 minutes, so I figured 40 minutes would be about right), and with an eye on Wimbledon I fell asleep at 3 pm, only to wake after some 14 hours of the deepest sleep ever.

By contrast, since I didn’t really know many people here, and I had not scheduled anything in particular, I spent my Sunday mostly in the hotel, frantically enjoying a splendid internet connection. I went out just for lunch, with a colleague, and marveled at the ghost-town in the Gombe (expat) area – apparently with the July 4 weekend, the Americans are all celebrating out of the city, while the Brits had some sort of exclusive club-meeting to watch Wimbledon together. Resting well I did then, bracing for a crazy week full of meetings ahead.

Africa Reloaded

2011-07-01T10:13:00.000-07:00

So I did decide to stay on and move on at the same time. After an amazing vacation in Europe, last week I returned to Africa to take on a daunting mission: becoming the Congo media and information officer for a large humanitarian aid organization.

Luckily, the beginning of my assignment coincided with an advocacy and external relations workshop that they were holding in Nairobi, so here I was, learning about my new Congo job in Kenya and meeting new colleagues from across Africa and the US. It is now my last night here, and I am standing by the pool at the fabulous Silver Springs Hotel, bracing for a flight to Kinshasa tomorrow.

As hundreds of names of people, locations and programs are flying by me and flooding my new outlook inbox I am slowly getting ready for what will certainly be a CRAZY job. Since Congo is just about INSANELY BIG, it is actually considered not a country, but a region, with each province a sort of country on its own. I can already see myself criss-crossing this 2.4. million km2 territory, setting up a whole communications machinery and dealing with everything I could have ever imagined in ‘field work’. I am quite exhausted only at the thought of it all, but soooo excited to see all these places and help give those tens of millions in need a voice out there (yes, exactly, I am already learning the message, not to mention that my head is pretty much full of organizational jargon and strange acronyms). I am certainly pumped up by the Americans delivering this workshop (I felt a bit like back in class at Columbia, with this very forth-coming, hands-on-oriented approach, of which I had grown a bit apart in the last few years.)

It was all, actually, so professional, that I have been working some 12 hours a day (OK, with short breaks for the hotel gym and Masai shoe shopping). I was also thrown in cross-continental conference calls, with both staff around the world and journos interested in covering our work, that I am totally feeling part of something really BIG.

I can only hope I'll be safe and healthy in this momentous new chapter of my life, and that some day I will look back on it all and be convinced I made the right choice(s). See you in Congo!

Illegal Freedom

2011-04-10T12:09:00.000-07:00

I was supposed to fly back to Europe today, but very last minute 'things' came up: i.e. I got offered a massive promotion, PLUS my visa expired. As of today, I am therefore an illegal manager in Rwanda - a completely new status that will require some adjusting to.

As for the next few days the country is still in mourning (so office hours are very limited), I am not sure when and how I will get my papers back. Too bad, because I was planning an amazing vacation with my Italian friend Alberto (a loop from Rwanda-Kampala-Nairobi-Mombasa-Zanzibar-Serengeti-Rwanda). Instead - oh well, I just had to 'settle' today for the most amazing Sunday in Africa :-)

One of our American neighbors, Jock, a retired professional biker who participated five times in Tour de France and who now coaches the Rwandan team, has finally picked up on my suggestion and took me for a ride. A splendid motorbike on a splendid road (newly paved, going to Gitarama), through tea plantations and rolling hills. It had been my dream FOREVER to be on such a bike, but I never quite imagined I would have the ultimate thrills like I did today. I smirked for the whole two hours, not quite believing the amazing freedom (and yes, the taste of danger) that I was experiencing in such a forceful way. I have never felt more liberated in this country, where everything is so tightly controlled or so overcrowded.

To end my FANTASTIC day, I had the mother of all adventures at home. For the first time in 10 months I decided to have some people over for dinner and cook something myself. As I was approaching the stove, a can of fruit on the nearby shelf exploded and threw everything around in the air. The noise was deafening, and the kitchen (and myself) splattered everywhere with canned mango and pears. It was actually VERY scary. Go figure, of all the things that could kill or harm me in Africa, to get attacked by a can in my own house...

Never Again!

2011-04-08T10:41:00.000-07:00

April 7, 1994… Under the relentless rain, Rwanda was entering the darkest age imaginable to mankind. The macabre history is out there for everyone to read. And learn from. And never repeat again!

The survivors and their personal stories are on the other hand very much around me, every single day. Although people are mostly restrained in talking about that nightmarish spring, it is still so very much on everyone’s mind. How could it not be, when pretty much all Rwandans have had many family members, friends or neighbors tortured and killed in the most cruel, brutal, bestial way ever conceivable...

And there is no harsher time to remember than every April. The rain pours down in what reminds me of Dickens’ “implacable November weather.” No sun rays for days, no hope for light. Add to that the deep silence, and it all becomes almost frightful. In a country where everyone is walking everywhere at all times, and where traffic is insanely busy, all of a sudden the streets are empty and sooo quiet. Apart for the genocide memorial gatherings, which are organized each day for a whole week, no one moves, no one talks. Surreal to have just the rain pounding down on an empty country, with haunting memories.

I spent April 7 alone in the house, somewhat unsure of how to even act around myself. For some half an hour around midday I stepped out on our side street and just sat there, in the rain. And then, last night, I joined my friend Bonny to the big gathering on the stadium. I lit a candle in the middle of a huge, silent crowd. And then the screams came. As one survivor was retelling his story (he was the only one to make it out alive from a church where 5,000 people were massacred – a church which I actually visited…), people were fainting around. The hysterical cries of the survivors and the emotional church music, all next to a huge bonfire, made for quite the most poignant, distressing night I have ever had in Africa... Still so hard to fathom how the victims and the killers now really live side by side...

As I walked home through the ghost-like town the rain began to come down again. And I felt blessed I had no memories to sift through on a night like that.

Football Joy and Genocide Mourning Preparations

2011-04-07T02:06:00.000-07:00

I have not missed many Barcelona games in the last year, and I was certainly not going to miss the big game last night. Dilemma, though: the upscale place 'uptown', where we usually watch the games, has just one screen, and they were definitely going to show Chelsea-Manchester, as Africans are just wild about English teams (loyalties are now re-distributed, as main love Arsenal is out of Champions League). We thus needed a longer expedition downtown, to one of the real popular football venues - i.e. dark, stuffy rooms, full of several hundred passionate fans, watching the two games on the two side-by-side huge screens.

I persuaded my American colleague Stacy (a Barca-fan-by-way-of-hanging-out-with-me) to go get a beer first at the 'Kenyan bar' in town, and then we moved next door, to Amani Soccer Center. 300 RWF ($0.50) to get in (we were the only ones to carry beers inside as well), and urged we were to move to the far side of the room - corresponding to the Barca screen. I was proudly wearing my Barca shirt (purchased in Barcelona a few months ago), which attracted a lot of noises from the audience - and although my Kinyarwanda is practically non-existent, I did sense the hate in everyone's voices (Barca being the team that kicked Arsenal out two years in a row, of course).

We were lucky to get some of the last chairs available, and ready we were to chant at 8.45, when power was cut. They brought the generator to life in a few minutes - long enough, though, for us to miss the Iniesta opener. No regrets, however, as goals kept flowing the entire night. Deep down, I was feeling sympathetic towards Lucescu, whose gimmicks again attracted a lot of laughter from my African watching companions. And I started dreaming of the four El Classicos that would basically follow in the next three weeks. WOW!

Sometime in the middle of that game, I had to turn to Stacy (who is Norwegian by descent, therefore as fair-haired as these Africans can only dream of) and asked her is she felt remotely uneasy there. I certainly didn't, and I somehow thought I should: we were these only two mzungus, and the only two women on top of that, in the middle of a screaming, sweaty manly crowd, in pitch dark, with no way 'to escape'. Stacy assured me she was fine as well. Bizarre, over all, how one African country with such a bloody history would make us feel so incredibly safe overall! Pretty scary thought, sometimes... Even more so at this time of the year, as we are commemorating the 1994 genocide, and tales of unfathomed cruelty and human bestiality surface in every conversation.

As the country prepared to go into mourning the next day, celebrations for Barca and Manchester victories in the streets were restrained. We walked home onto our recently publicly-lit street, supremely happy for the wonderful game, and prepared for a next day of silence and reflection. Another African paradox in the making...

Congo Travels

2011-04-04T23:19:00.000-07:00

The end of my contract is now very near, and I decided to take one last long trip ‘out there’ in Congo. On the map, Kasugho is no more than some 350 kms from Goma, but this involves traveling by plane for an hour to Butembo, and then by road for some 4-10 hours – if there are no trucks stuck in the mud and if the rain holds as well as it can.

Leaving aside the exhaustion, and the fact that even if all your papers are in order there will ALWAYS be someone to come up with a ‘new rule’ that changed overnight and threaten to arrest you or something, there’s a certain beauty to this trip. First, the luggage weighing is out of this world. You stand in this dark corner and pass your stuff one by one over a rope to some guys, who fight for the right to smash your laptop bag. They hang your suitcases on this scale, and then they shout across the room to someone in another dark corner: “8, 12, 14, etc, etc.” Another guy is then supposed to cross this room and get the bag labels reflecting those kilos. By the time he is back, of course no-one remembers which bag was 8, which was 12, etc., especially as there are tons of people whose luggage is weighed at the same time. They start quarreling, and too bad for you if you end up with someone else’s luggage labeled (miraculously my stuff has always arrived in some shape).

Then it’s time to cross the main lobby, and turn down offers from guys who want to sell you cheese and boiled eggs. You then disappear behind this new wooden panel to go through border control. Usually, they are fascinated when they see a Romanian passport, and they go on and on about Mobutu and Ceausescu. This last time, a lady behind the counter was very confused and required some information: “Les gens de la nationalite de la Roumanie, il s’appellent comment?” When I told her I was ‘roumaine’ she had trouble entering that into her register, so we had to spell it slowly a couple of times, until the whole room was staring to this weird nationality of a girl. We then cleared my ‘ordre de mission”, an A4 paper which states exactly when and where I am traveling, and which requires a LOT of stamps back and forth upon taking off and landing. Luckily, the guy at the guichet for the yellow fever certificate was not there this time (that’s how ‘strongly’ they enforce they protection against yellow fever), so I escaped another round of discussions (i.e. ‘this stamp is not valid’, ‘what does it say here’, etc, etc.)

Finally, I arrive to the waiting room. While I wait inside, with the doors somewhat closed, for my small Butembo-bound plane to show up, a huge plane is just boarding for Kinshasa in front of us, and when it starts rolling for take-off I feel like all the dust in the world is magnetized towards me and that I’m swept away with it on the runway. I try to ignore it, but somehow the whole building seems to be shaking and the glass windows are not offering that much protection. I wonder, again, why this plane cannot be parked a bit further away, just like our little tiny one is (we have to practically run outside to get to our Tupolev). I was especially interested in getting a seat ‘up front’, to escape being on the window under the wings, so that I can take some decent pictures.

As luck has it, I got a magnificent seat: some 20 cms. away from the pilot’s cabin, which, for some reason, was left with the doors open. It was quite THE fascinating flight, me sticking my head between the pilots’ seats and watching closely all they were doing throughout the flight (AND recording it all, without bothering to ask for permission). It really is fascinating, flying these small planes across the jungle, but so low down that you can see everything out there. My favorite command (not sure what it does, though), was “Bleed air”, which they were turning on and off quite a bit. I also almost developed a crush on the co-pilot, who was young and seemed quite good looking from the profile. And who, thank God, landed us safely some 50 minutes later, on this dirt strip amid potato fields in Butembo.

I had not been there in some four months, and things had progressed considerably: they had sealed off the ‘landing area’ with a rope between two poles, and the waiting crowd was committed to the parking lot, some 15 meters away. Which meant, of course, that I had to carry all my luggage by myself to the driver, George. To my immense joy, the airport chief remembered me very well. “Demian, vous etes ici!” Indeed I was. “Et vous allez a Kasugho”. He was right again. I just needed his stamps and his blessings, and off I went.

The next thing you need to understand about the drive from Butembo to Kasugho (actually Katoyu, a suburb of the grand village of Kasugho) is that because it is such a difficult and expensive ride ($120 for fuel), they always need to make sure the SUV is always filled to capacity, with both people and merchandise. Somehow though, none of this is ever ready by the time I land there, so once I’m out of the airport it’s time to go around Butembo and collect them people and things. Too bad if you happen to arrive on a Friday – which is reserved for ‘public works’, so pretty much all shops are closed until noon. To get the items on the list (paint, salted fish, water, gas, all sorts of onstruction materials, plus documents from different offices) we need to go in circles around town several times, which is even more difficult nowadays as half of the city is closed down for road repairs. Eventually, some three hours later, we are uber-loaded with stuff and we start collecting the people. Soon, the back seat will contain 3-5 mostly sweaty-smelly Congolese of different affiliations, family or work relationships, so we are finally ready to embark on the jump-up-and-down road journey.

Surprisingly, this time it all went quite smoothly, with no incidents in the first three hours. As we were almost ready for a record finish, we did have to put our expectations on hold, arriving in a curve where the road was literally cut across in two. They had dug up this four-meter deep ditch, to put pipes across from the mountain on the right to the river on the left, so that rain water should easily pass under, not over thee road. Important improvement, no doubt, for future travelers. As for us – well, just get out of the car, walk around, give bonbons to a hoard of kids gathered around, and quietly wait for about 2 hrs ½ to finally get the road back.

Five days later, at five a.m., the trip back starts – again, with quite a loaded car. My colleague Sandy and I were supposed to catch a flight early afternoon, so we started off quite early, to avoid any possible mishaps on the road. It all went amazingly well this time, with our driver George getting us out of some pretty nasty muddy situations. We were then left in Hotel Butembo eating and drinking for some three hours, not knowing that our biggest challenge would come at the airport. The chief apparently found that Sandy’s visa was expired – which, actually, it was not. Issued on Oct. 12 and valid for 6 months, it would have expired only on April 11, but since the officials also included October in the counting – there it was, over and done with. Luckily, with my amazing math skills, I saw the problem, and in a very enthusiastic French I was trying to make him see it too, as Sandy was confined to a corner, not believing what was happening to her. So, we gathered every airport officials in a room, got two calendars available, a piece of paper and a pen, and started:
Oct 12-Nov. 12: 1
Nov. 12-Dec.12: 1
Dec. 12-Jan.12: 1

Etc, etc. Of course, by the time we would get to March, they would all get confused, and we had to begin all over again. The chief would pause now and then, saying wisely “Je suis en train d’analyzer la situation…” After some 20 minutes he did admit he was wrong – for which conclusion he definitely deserved a chocolate bonbon, that was still left somewhere in my bag. In turn, he gave me a long-overdue gift as well: the DRC independence anniversary pin, which I had asked him to get for me since last June.

Ufff, we could finally board the plane. I was exhausted from my advanced numbering session, and all I wanted was to get going. The same cute pilot was on duty – but somehow didn’t seem as cute anymore. I put it this was to Sandy: “This pilot looked better proportioned a few days ago,” to which she said “You mean you found him attractive.” I guess yes, that’s what I meant. Weird to have turned politically correct in Congo of all places?!

The flight was marvelous, as for the first time I sat down on the ‘Ugandan side” of the plane, flying over the majestic Lake Edward that separates the two countries. I was lucky enough to get amazing pictures, of this mind-blowing landscape, as well the lava path near Goma. What an incredible country, by all accounts!

Indeed, surprises would not end there. At the Goma airport they somehow felt like picking on MY passport, saying that I cannot travel for work with a tourist visa (which we just recently purchased for $475!), and that I had to get a new one in Kinshasa of all places. I started ‘arguing’, and asking how come it was possible for me to travel for the past 9 months on ‘tourist visas’, and the guy kept rambling on and on about a ‘new law’ and the ‘good of his heart’ – that he as going to let me pass ‘only this time’. BS, of course, as it turned out soon enough, when our man, Jackson, came to pick us up. He knew the guy all to well, and he clearly explained how he was just looking for a small bribe from ‘la roumaine’.

Oh well. At least we had arrived back safe and sound. As for the ‘Goma mission’ – a completely different saga…

The Intriguing Goma Mix

2011-03-20T00:12:00.000-07:00

I was not quite aware of the ethnic divide in the Goma society before a couple of weeks ago, when I first hung out with the ‘metisse’ community. Yes, those light-skinned people, who have the strangest, most appealing kinds of heritages: French, Belgian, Italian, Greek, Portuguese, etc., all seasoned with a dash of Congolese blood. Result: BEAUTIFUL features, and a definite noblesse and style not easily found in Black Africa. Add to that the fact that they all grew up in luxury (owning massive tea and coffee plantations in the vast countryside, as well as the most beautiful houses on the Goma Kivu Lake front), that they all got high education in Europe (mostly in Belgium – a country which, incidentally, they quite dislike), and that now they are supremely influential in the Goma high-life, and yes, the mix is all the more appealing. The fact that their properties were devastated in the last decade of civil war in Eastern DRC seems to have been largely overcome, and I am now impatiently waiting for the rain season to pass, so that roads can be usable again, so that I can visit their famous cheese-producing farms near Masisi, north of Goma.

I was introduced to this community through Dario, a young gentleman, who might just as well qualify as the nicest guy I have ever met. He works for a partner NGO and is an avid basketball player/lover, so after a cold business meeting a few months ago, we finally connected on a personal level as well. (Nothing more to read into this, as he is also married to one of the cutest women I have ever seen in my life. She is a girlish beauty, beaming with happiness, as she is quite far in her first pregnancy). The stylish house they have on the lake - one in the long row of houses owned by the metisses here, among which also the previous marvelous house my organization rented here – is quite the glamor in this decrepit city, and seems to be the drag of all parties. Great music on the lawn, crepes flambees on the terrace, fancy wines and liquors flowing everywhere, a huge plasma TV showing NBA or La Liga games for the crazy fans, all on the background of a tropical rain and high-class French (these people only speak Swahili to their staff, not amongst themselves) and yes, this is quite THE perfect night in Goma. Amongst the guests I met there: a pilot with his own private company, the main wine and spirit importer for East Africa, a professional football player (who spent years in DC and Brazil, and is now on his way to Cape Town), a hotel manager, a bar and club-owner, AND the leader of the Mai Mai (a middle-aged Congolais ‘pur’ (i.e. Black), who started the conversation by the following: “I got divorced a month ago, and I am now looking for a wife’…)

As the parties flow, the weekends in Goma are certainly more interesting. And when the parties are over, I am putting on my sneakers (actually their sneakers, they have dozens of pairs for guests) and going to shoot some hoops on their private court, next to the lake. On a day like this, I really believe life cannot get any better…

The Libyan Factor

2011-03-14T08:40:00.000-07:00

Over the last decade I have found myself in some pretty crazy situations, but I can hardly recall one that shook me as strongly as the one starting some 26 hours ago. And I mean quite literally SHOOK, inside-out and upside-down.

The connection goes back to a very random evening some five months ago, when I met this Libyan guy, Essam, in a bar in Kigali. A few weeks later, we also happened to plan a Burundi weekend at the same time – and he duly served me and my friends with a lovely shisha session on the beach, for some 48 hours. And that was that, until a few days ago, when I called him up, to ask how he and his family were doing with all the craziness in Libya.

Now, please imagine someone who speaks English quite badly, multiply it by a 1,000, and then add the funniest accent you can possible think of. Long story short, Essam is a very hot, rich and seemingly highly-educated guy, who works for the Libyan Embassy in Kigali, but unfortunately communication between us (on a verbal level, of course;-)) is just IMPOSSIBLE. Somehow I managed to understand that he was going to Gisenyi with friends the next day, and that he would love to have me over in Kigali whenever I needed a place to stay.

On Saturday, as I was also at the beach with my girl-friends, we briefly met, and I asked Essam and his Libyan boy-friends whether I could get a lift from Ruhengeri to Kigali the next day with them. Sure I could. What I did not know was that I would almost sign up for suicide.

I have NEVER before been seriously afraid for my life in a car as I was yesterday. These guys were, quite literally, INSANE, on this very narrow, windy, suspended road. What it normally takes the other crazy African drivers around 2h15 mins. to make, we did in 1h22mins. I keep wondering how come I didn’t throw up a million times in the back seat, and how come I was still in a somewhat good mood by late afternoon.

Well, I actually do know how – as shaken as I was by the road, I was yet to take in a different shock in Kigali: the PALACE these guys live in, and the lifestyle they have, on a very regular basis. Simply put: lie on sofas and smoke shishas. My mistake was to think that this is just a late afternoon-relaxing habit, but after getting completely high last night (only with legitimate tobacco, of course), I realized that the only way to wash that away was to have more shisha first thing on a Monday morning, on the terrace. And then break for lunch, have delicious couscous, and top it off with even more shisha.

In between puffs, I was trying to get more insights from Libya, but apart from Al-Jazeera in the background and the Sevilla-Barca game in which we all suffered terribly, my knowledge of Gaddafi is still mostly from the NY Times. I did, however, experience first hand the AMAZING Libyan hospitality, so, all shaking aside, this was quite a remarkable moment in my life.

Half of the palace (imagine the same to the left)

Monday morning treat

Going Congolese

2011-03-13T05:00:00.000-07:00

I have resisted buying pagne (the typical African cotton waxed fabric) for quite a while. Everywhere you go in the markets, the patterns simply dazzle you - and make you realize that you could never wear most of them anywhere else outside Africa. Even more so, as the ones they consider 'high quality' and that are exorbitantly expensive seem like quite some cheap plastic table cloths to us. In one attempt last fall, I did get some green-based fabric, and took it to a tailor in this isolate village in Congo (the idea was to help the local women's cooperative there, without knowing that the 500 women had a man-tailor). The result was a total catastrophe - I had asked the guy to combine some cuts from several designs he had on the wall, explaining it in terms he could not have understood (I wanted to dress to be flared, 'like a salad', and then I realized he didn't not know what a salad was, so I said in turn 'make it like a cabbage', and that's exactly what he did...) Oh well, the finished product was anything BUT what I had imagined, but at least it is wearable around the house, and it did make for a nice photo op (see below).

After that experience, I refrained for the next few months, until last weekend, when I was stranded in Goma (after another trip to the field had been canceled.) Slightly bored one day, I asked my new friend, Dr. Anny (who always wears these mind-boggling dresses) to take me to the market to purchase some stuff. It was quite a crazy day, as the place was invaded by the Uruguayan UN contingent - men looking for shorts - and this one Romanian girl who could NOT stop buying completely unwearable things. That's what I thought, at least, because it turned out I did wear my first Congolese dress in public just yesterday, at the beach in Rwanda. The lovely day out, with my Italian and American colleagues/friends - Veronica and Stacy - was quite something, and it certainly gave me the best opportunity to put on outrageous colors and feel totally at home :-)

Gorillas in the Mist

2011-03-11T07:08:00.000-08:00

I have never, before yesterday, seen gorillas in the mist. Surely, I saw gorillas, and surely I saw mist, but never in the mind-blowing combination of yesterday. A cold and rainy morning in the forest coincided with my first visit to Isabukuru group. Fantastic visit too, as for the first time I saw a huge silverback tenderly cuddling an infant. As I was absorbed by the family-scene, the mist started sweeping through the forest. Thick and deep, with almost a milky texture and a heavy autumn odor. As the trees and giant lobelias became ever less visible, gorillas all sat down, in the morose-like pose, and sulked it all in. Quite surreal. And definitely worth $500 (if I were to pay the tourist rate)…

The chimps at Gishwati

2011-03-08T08:22:00.000-08:00

Once the excitement of being new in Africa started winding down late last year, I began becoming more aware of other, more subtle things that pertain to today’s realities in this part of the world. And one such thing has been Rwandan geography -- and essentially the way in which it has been reshaped in the last few decades. First, lots of forests were cleared in the ‘70s, in a governmental program aimed at extending agricultural lands (mostly for potatoes and pyrethrum fields – yes, those lovely daisies, which are actually the most effective natural insecticide in the world.). Then came the wave of degazetting former protected areas in the wake of the 1994 genocide, to give lands to the returning refugees and make place for the cash-crops, such as coffee and tea. So much so, that when you now drive from Ruhengeri to the DRC border (an hour on a perfect road), you look left and right and see just over-crowded villages and rolling tea-plantations, where less than 20 years ago you had deep wilderness.

No surprise then, that my curiosity to trek Gishwati, the one forest left intact in the east of the country, kept growing. All the more so, as in the last couple of years they started a program of habituating the previously-thought-long-gone chimpanzee population. As I had never seen chimps in the wild, and as this is still off the tourist-map of Rwanda (i.e. FREE, i.e. unbelievable), I kept trying to get a visit there. Finally, last week, the people running the project there accepted me (as a representative of Karisoke) and my friend Alberto to go visit.

Now, as with all things in Africa, everything is totally last minute. I was in Congo, recovering after other last-minute plan changes, and on my way back to cross the border on Sunday afternoon, when I got the call that the visit to Gishwati was in place for EARLY Monday morning. Alberto and I met in Gisenyi (the border town of Rwanda), got accommodation at the Dian Fossey Hotel (what a perfect match, right?!) and then prepared for a crazy adventure the following day.

We were picked up at the crack of dawn, drove to this village for about two hours, then waited for the habituation team to come over for the second shift of the day. And off we went. I had NO IDEA that Gishwati was so radically different from the Volcanoes National Park forest, where I go to see gorillas. It is still very high up (2,500m), but it is completely humid, and thus swampy in places. A real, majestic rain forest, with waterfalls, huge ferns, and incredible birds (finally saw the turaco up-close – WOW!). We were really lucky to get a fantastic day – and then, when a bit of a heavy rain started coming down, we were so well protected by the canopy that we barely got a few drops. Actually, the only annoying thing of the day – some crazy biting ants, that somehow targeted me only, and that were crawling everywhere in my pants and underwear – and, quite remarkably actually, even within the layers of my knee bandage?!?

Anyhow. After quite a hike (not comparable to the one for gorillas, though, which is much more abrupt), we met and swapped the first habituation team after midday, and spent the rest of the afternoon staring high up in the trees, within the very narrow space between the hoods and the masks. These chimps are quite something. Fission and fusion, as I learnt. Meaning, they come together in small groups, then they go apart again, then reunite with other chimps. Basically, impossible to keep track of all of them. In theory, there are about 20 in Gishwati, but we were told we were lucky to see four of them (of which, one female with a really cute baby).

It was all quite an experience, although completely exhausting (we made it back to our hotel in Gisenyi at midnight, after another hike, a long wait in a completely dark village with dozens of kids around us, and the drive back, of course). 24 hours later, my neck is still hurting from looking up so very high for so many hours. In any event, I have a new appreciation for the guys doing the habituation. What a difficult (and, honestly, boring at times) job! But what a day they gave us!

The Board

2011-03-02T23:01:00.000-08:00

I am finally at ease to sit down and write a few lines, after the craziest last decade in February. The mighty, rich, gorilla board members descended from the US upon Africa for what was supposed to be a week-long ‘board meeting’. In my naiveté, I assumed that that would include a lot of actual meetings, with budgets and strategy and stuff. Wrong, of course. Already in January, I was entrusted to put together an agenda, to which people kept adding ‘drinks’, ‘cocktails’, ‘beach party’, ‘dinners’, ‘receptions’, etc., etc. When I finally had it all ready, it struck me that the time for ‘meetings’ was down to the grand total of four hours in seven days. WOW!

That being said, I was not all that upset about organizing fancy events on the beach here and there. The only problem: no one had given me a budget from the outset, so after running around both in Rwanda and Congo to find appropriate venues, book music bands, decide on fancy drinks, AND invite people, I was told that “we need to cut back, as there is no money.”

It was, actually, an interesting exercise for me, juggling with inexistent funds and actually coming up with a really good event. I feel like I have strongly enriched my set of skills – as in a field job you are really supposed to be on top of all sorts of tasks, that no one has ever trained you for, and deal with last-minute changes in the most unexpected ways.

The only problem: I was exhausted! All of this came, of course, on top of my daily duties, which included gorilla runs and writing a ton of stories for our publications (funnily enough, the “Gorilla Journal” that comes out in March has me as the sole author from cover to cover…). On top of that, I was deeply involved with giving our center a facelift for the board visit (this implied cleaning everything and everyone up, including our dogs and cat, who all got a ceremonial bath in view of the American millionaires coming down to Rwanda). As the communications coordinator, I was also charged with getting all our staff to speak proper, efficient English, pretty much put together all their presentations, and give concept for the brochures we were going to give out.

Throughout this entire process, I was not exactly in the best shape ever, as I busted my knee on Valentine’s Day, and kept limping with a large bandage ever since, PLUS I was already deeply illegal – as my passport kept being a no-show, stuck in some office somewhere, during which time all my visas were running out. As the board visit was getting nearer, I was getting completely stressed out, having to organize their entire visit to Congo from across the border (and, I am sure you all know by now, that in the DRC if you are not there personally, pushing everyone hard, NOTHING ever gets done.)

With all this in mind, I should get a medal (or at least a raise) for actually turning this whole thing into a big success. AND for having the patience to cater to the board participants in a very calm, constructive manner (some of them were at times worse than 2-year-olds, of course). My job was particularly demanding when I had to make sure that no one stayed behind in some random toilet, that they all had their passports with them when we were approaching the border (even after intense training some of them had not quite understood that necessity), show them how to sign their names under the ‘signature’ column on some forms that I had already filled up for them, AND find an answer to the brilliant question, posed while queuing at the heavily militarized DRC border: “How do you say ‘what’s up’ in Kinyarwanda?”

So there. In all honesty, and despite the exhaustion, this was all a great week. Too bad at the very end I didn’t get a helicopter ride with the billionaire (yes, you read it right) of the group. He just happened to have too many bags for me to fit in as well (and thus I missed the opportunity to take aerial shots of the Volcanoes National Park, on a truly glorious day).

My depression wore off quickly, though, as like this I had the chance to stay one more day at the Kivu Lake beach, in Gisenyi. Funny day, too – the luxurious Serena Hotel was being prepped for the presidential retreat, so pretty much all guests had left, and about 200 soldiers with sniffing dogs had taken over. We were literally just a handful of mzungus, being shoved back and forth, in the middle of this armed-to-the-teeth regiment. It was the most unlikely setting to start any kind of romance – but as luck has it, I did meet a really hot guy, so we were flirting over lots of beers, on the beach, surrounded by staring soldiers. I also met another back-in-the-day-hot-man, who is the head of some mining company that intends to produce ‘organic, green gold’ in Congo, and who was really interested in giving me this story as exclusive, to cover :-) Add to that the joy of Barca's win and Messi's goal over the weekend, and this was a really amazing wrap-up of February.

Stay tuned for after-exhaustion updates!

African Glamor

2011-02-15T08:47:00.001-08:00

It has been a bizarre couple of weeks in Africa - i.e. lots of work, a nasty cold, but somehow so many social events I can hardly keep up with all the invites... Here are some "glamor" January-February shots, away from the freezing Northern Hemisphere winter.

Sick and without Identity

2011-02-10T02:37:00.000-08:00

Nothing much to report as of late, other than the fact that I've been mostly sick (obviously, since I swam in a cold lake on Sunday and then drove back home with my wet hair in the car 'curent'). Oh well, I now have a very sexy (stuck) voice, but I have no intention of lying low - which is why I am organizing a party this Saturday, to finally put our gorgeous garden to good use (amazingly enough, February has been the sunniest, warmest month I have even seen in Africa, so I know where I'll spend my winters from now on!)

For the rest - many deadlines, little action (as I am not allowed to go see gorillas when I am sniffing), and waiting (im)patiently to get my identity back. My passport has been a no-show for weeks now, and I just hear that it travels (without me) on some buses and couriers back and forth between Rwanda and Congo. Hopefully today it's the end of it all...

Dr. Kim's in Town!

2011-02-01T22:51:00.000-08:00

My weekends in Africa can mostly be divided into three categories:
1. Staying in Musanze, working, and for the rest getting bored, so going for a meal or BBQ with other bored mzungus, and meeting all other mzungus from all other NGOs in town;
2. Going to Kigali or Goma and meeting new, exciting people, eating some cool, expensive foods and dancing;
3. Going for road-trips to neighboring countries or regions, and coming back dead-tired.

This weekend was going to be a mix of the first two, so on Friday night, as some of us bored mzungus were taking a pizza at the Volcana lounge meeting all other Musanze mzungus, things all of a sudden became interesting. From the neighboring table, where the American vets of MGVP (Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project) were having dinner, this early 40s, skinny man comes over to us and invites us to a party for Monday night. “Come over and bring all your friends!” I was a bit taken aback, as the guy didn’t introduce himself, so my question, half-amused half-snotty was “And what’s the occasion? January 31/Monday-night party?” No, it wasn’t that. It was “Dr. Kim’s in town party!”, as he ceremoniously declaimed.

Now, to my utter ignorance (and ignorance was NOT bliss in this case), I had no idea who Dr. Kim was, and I had not heard of the infamous “Dr. Kim’s in town parties”. With my new housemate Stacy, who was as stunned as I was by this whole episode, we pursued though to doing some background research. Soon, information was pouring from everywhere: Dr. Kim is MGVP’s biggest donor, and he throws these insane parties every time he comes over from the US; Dr. Kim is also a celebrity pet vet, treating the dogs and cats of Hollywood stars and Paris fashion week icons; lastly (or maybe firstly) Dr. Kim is the heir to Saks Fifth Avenue (which to me rang one bell: they are the only ones carrying Diorissimo Eau de Parfum, so, clearly, he was THE man to know!)

OK, so Monday night was going to be interesting – especially as Tuesday was Hero’s Day in Rwanda, so we were going to sleep in late… In the meantime, I pursued my weekend plans (a visit to Kigali, and a would-be-date with this super hot, rich, smart, had-lived-all-over-the-world guy, but who thought so much of himself that he was a total turn-off in the end). Who cared, though… (well, I did, a little), but Monday was becoming too interesting to dwell on anything else.

Finally, party night was here. Dr. Kim chose Volcana Lounge, and he certainly came prepared. He brought over a cotton-candy machine, his private film crew, a band and dance group, lots of neon-props, and a looooot of booze. It was certainly the most surreal setting I had seen in Musanze. Even more surprising – people were actually mixing and dancing (in this country, parties are of the type where you just sit down, eat brochettes, drink beer, and listen to endless speeches in Kinyarwanda. Unlucky you if you feel like dancing, as no one will start shaking before midnight…)

So there, 8 p.m. on a Monday night, the party of all parties was going strong. And Dr. Kim was certainly on top of it, as this thing completely reflected his flamboyant, larger-than-life character. Apart from thinking of the outrageous amount of money this must have cost, I actually had a GREAT TIME, wrapped in green and pink plastic neon-lights, and hard-kicking left and right guys who thought rubbing against me was acceptable. My salsa shoes from NYC were still doing the trick, so there – the night was just perfect :)

Thanks a lot, Dr. Kim, and I am certainly looking forward to your next time in town!

Anti-poaching

2011-01-26T07:46:00.000-08:00

As I am waiting to get out of the three-week-post-international-flight-quarantine and return to the gorillas, but as I have been missing the forest all too much, today I went for a routine patrol with the anti-poaching team. The ulterior motive: interview David, the guy in charge, for a piece through which I will … give him up for adoption (little does he know that he’ll be adopted online many times this year, by some very rich Americans – some new concept our Atlanta bureau has, whereby we don’t only give gorillas, but also trackers for hefty adoptions)…

Anyhow, I am glad to report that I had a FANTASTIC day today – not only was it shiny and warm, and the forest majestic, but I actually survived the first hike in 2 months quite gloriously. On top of that, David was a great guide: he was stopping a lot along the way and explaining so much about the vegetation zones, the animal trails (other than gorilla trails), and also about the huge conflict they have with the local population (right now, many enter the forest to collect honey, and I was explained in detail how this is done as well). At the end of the day, I emerged quite knowledgeable – I now know to differentiate the dung of two antelope sub-species. WOW.

The only downside – we didn’t actually find any snares (I know, it sounds awful to call this ‘downside’, when it is actually fantastic to have a clean forest, but for my photo collection I was certainly missing something). David helped again – he called the anti-poaching team to actually set up a snare for me – and then destroy it, of course!

Next week, if all goes well, I’ll join them on a different kind of mission – the shock patrol, where they go all the way to the Ugandan or Congolese borders, with very definite targets in mind (on one of these days, they can find dozens of snares)…It is certainly a heck of a job – and I was thinking, again, how much we would need this kind of discipline and monitoring of wildlife and habitat in Romania as well….

Never-cease-to-amaze-me-Congo

2011-01-21T03:29:00.000-08:00

Ever since I set foot in this crazy country last June, I've had such a fascination-rejection relationship with it. Nothing works properly, everyone is incredibly slow and inefficient, there’s some sort of danger at every corner you turn… And yet, somehow, this place is mesmerizing. And just then, when you think you’ve gotten it under your belt, there will be something else to surprise you in completely bizarre ways.

This time it was the new visa regime. Before, you could easily get a $35-7-day-visa at the border, which was perfect for tourists and businesses alike (then, in case you’d stick around, you would get a much more expensive 6-month-visa from the Immigration Directorate in Goma or Kinshasa). Now this is all changed (‘to avoid the bribery at the border,” they say). They created this ‘visa volante’, which costs $250+$35 for 7 days – and which you can’t even get easily anymore (either you apply to the DRC consulate in your own country – which could not have been my case – or you get someone to write a letter for you in Goma, depose it at the Immigration, get the A4 paper approved, take it to the border, get it signed, then get it to you in Rwanda, and then hopefully get you across the border, without being stuck for hours in no man’s land (which, in fact, had just happened to my Dutch colleague last week – 6 hours on the dirt strip between the two countries, because some papers had not been signed properly)).

When I tried to inquire what this was all about, I got Jackson (our PR guy in Goma) to answer brilliantly “C’est un vol organise. Visa VOLante-VOL – c’est tres simple”… So there, after paying this absurd amount, to basically just get my foot across in Goma, we gave my passport and another $470 to a guy named Paul in Immigration for my long-term visa (Paul greeted me like an old friend, as he already ‘knew’ me from my passport pics that had been circulated around…) So there, fantastic working for an NGO (which always complains about money), in a decrepit African country, where the right to enter and do some good costs $270+$35+$470…

At least I was in Goma again! YAY! Curiosity to see our new house/office was eating at me. While I mourned the change of our FABULOUS, but too expensive, lake property, I was excited about this new house – which was pitched to me as this wonder-place, ‘where EVERYTHING works AT ALL TIMES”. (Having water, electricity and internet in Goma, on a constant basis, is truly a matter of dreams). So here we came, on this very rough volcanic-lava road, just behind the Governor’s house, to this two-story, imposing building. My English colleagues Sandy and my new Dutch colleague Luitzen were already here, so it was going to be a fun few days, trying to figure out a work-schedule for our 2011 DRC programs. Instead, our priorities turned out to be quite different, in a house where the never-ending scenario is along these lines: the water goes away, but we have electricity and internet; then electricity is cut off, and the generator cannot be turned on, because we use the same battery for the generator and some car office, and some wise-guy leaves for the night with that car; then electricity comes back, but the internet is hiccupping; then the water also comes back but floods everything downstairs; in the meantime, we have light in the rooms upstairs, but the sockets are not working, and neither is the light in the bathroom; finally we try to start the boiler to heat water, and in the middle of the luke-warm shower the water is cut again. ALL this in a house where “everything is working properly”… And I didn’t even get to mention all other logistics problems (we have several cars and several drivers, but when you need to go somewhere noone is ever ready, while the cars are all unusable for some reason - no fuel, need of washing, need of registering, etc, etc.)

When you finally move, everything turns into a real expedition: even if you have a very precise destination set out in your mind, you will need to incorporate a million other things: dropping off and picking up people everywhere, going to get some receipts for God-knows what in some God-forgotten alley, stopping every 5 minutes to chat with this and that, turning back because someone forgot something or someone is calling for something… So yes, you are always guaranteed to arrive late and be already exhausted, and then sit in another meeting where noone is ready for anything (for example, I was summoned today for 10 a.m., and at 10.30 I am writing this blog, as everyone is just bypassing me completely unfazed and unprepared… At least I had a HOT shower today (miracle!), and the best, juiciest, sweetest pineapple of my life for breakfast, and I am wearing a beautiful green dress to match the sunny day. So, ultimately, I am smiling and being happy for another day of adventure in mad Congo!

WOW Kenya!

2011-01-12T10:10:00.000-08:00

My second Africa chapter began last Friday, when, after a strange pneumonia combined with all sorts of weird fainting symptoms, I was finally in a good shape to leave Cluj. Just in time, apparently, as right now I am reading about blizzards and fog that have taken over Romania again, turning everything into chaos.

After a very smooth three flights, on Saturday morning I landed in Nairobi. It would have been a nice week-long vacation, but with my medical condition and last-minute flight postponing, I was going to have just one weekend instead. My friend Beth, with whom I work in Rwanda, was home for the holidays, and she turned into the best guide for my rushed, fantastic 36 hours in Kenya.

Now being Africa-savvy, I realized how completely relaxed I was there, even if Nairobi is far bigger than any other place I had seen on this continent, and even if its reputation is not exactly the best (some call it ‘Nairoberry’, and apparently for a good reason too). The first things I noticed, half-amused, were the green “city-hoppa” buses and the huge predator birds, hanging from trees everywhere on the Mombassa Road (the large avenue that connects the airport to the city). Well, backtracking a bit – I was actually shocked by something: when I had asked Beth to give me her address, so that I can fill it in on my visa request, I was stunned to get a long line of numbers, instead of a street name and house number. Now driving along the large Mombassa Road, I was curious as to why houses were not somehow linked to the name of the street. I was told things were so chaotic in terms of urban planning that no-one could keep track which building is placed on which street or path or plot of land or something, so getting a code is the only way to go (of course, there’s no way you can find such a place by yourself)…

After a quick drive through the city, we actually headed out for the rest of the day, to catch a glimpse of the majestic Rift Valley, the cone-shaped Fly-Over mountain (which I had actually flown over a few hours beforehand), and then to see a natural reserve, Elementaita, renowned for its splendid flamingo colonies. The taxi Beth hired for the day was rather dodgy, but still it kept going boldly on the “highway” – i.e. a two-lane street going all the way to the Ugandan border and then Kampala. I thought I had seen it all in terms of traffic in Africa before, but now, since the road was ‘good’ (i.e. paved), there were other challenges: when you try to overtake, at very high speeds, everyone else does it at the same time, so you have all these cars suddenly jumping from the queue, one in front of the other. The two lane-street instantly turns into a four-five lane (each car finds its own course), and, well, it is quite scary. No wonder accidents are so commonplace (a big and a small bus had collided frightfully just in front of us), but since the flamingos were calling, there was no other way but forward.

Once we left the highway, some guys selling ‘nyama choma’ (roasted meat) sent us looking for flying pigs – i.e. a dirt road, where the only directions were provided by huge stones on the ground. The scenery was surreal (not very different from the stone-desert in Morocco): completely dried up, with huge cactuses with incredible white flowers everywhere, and the lake at the horizon. We drove around for some half an hour, but since it was clear we were completely lost, and Beth was fearing robbery, we turned and took instead the civilized way: paying an entrance fee to a fancy lodge that administers the reserve, getting an imposing Masai guide, and driving on a better-shaped dirt road.

All of a sudden, the colors around me blew up: the deep red of the Masai garment (‘assorted’ with knee-high NBA socks!) and the suave, yet striking pink of the flamingos on the lake (we were lucky to see up close the nicer of the two subspecies, the lesser flamingo, whose pink is way more intense, especially under the wings). In a few minutes, I also received a crash-course on these incredible birds: they fly only at night, up to 500 kms in one stretch; they breed only in Tanzania; their flocks can number up to 1 million individuals; they feed on some algae in the lakes, which eventually gives them the color of the plumage; they are not hunted, as their meat is poisonous.

Mesmerized, but remembering the clock-ticking fast, I had to agree to leave the lake and return to Nairobi. After one police hold-up on the road, a bribe of $15, and a lunch-on-the-go (sausages, fries, and fresh mango-papaya-banana-carrot juice), we finally made it back, right in time for a crazy shopping spree. After the most beautiful African skirt-top duo I got in a store, we headed out to the mind-blowing Masai market, where I had my craves fixated on three kinds of things: bead-embroidered leather shoes (lots of them), bead jewels, and pole-pole T-shirts. (“pole-pole” means ‘slowly-slowly’ and is my favorite expression in Swahili. From the airport in December, I had bough a T-shirt with a tortoise and ‘pole-pole’ for a friend in Cluj, and since then I had been yearning for one myself :-)).

A couple of hours and hundred of dollars later, I could hardly move anymore, and yet I could not stop the bargaining. Shopping addiction it’s called, I believe. I could have spent a week in that market for sure, and still not be satisfied. In fact, once I got home and unpacked, and saw all those beauties in my bags, I knew I had to go back for more, so the next day I quickly returned for more bead work. Luckily I had anticipated all this and left enough space in my bags that were going on my next flight to Kigali.

As if the day had not been already overwhelming, the evening came with the most extravagant culinary experience EVER. The famed restaurant in called ‘Carnivore’ and it borders the Nairobi Natl Park. Traditionally, you could eat here every possible game meat, but since 2004 this has been illegal in Kenya. Not to worry, though, meat lovers! The choice and quantities here are INSANE and everything goes by the rule of the flag. You receive a small ‘carnivore’ flag and you fly it on your table until your own feast is done. The set menu goes for abut $25, which includes soup and desert, while in the middle you have the Beast of a Feast. Or the Feast of a Beast. On your plate, the first thing that appears are bull balls, to prepare your sensitive mouth for what is to follow. Basically by the entrance they have this massive fire place/grill, where they cook everything on very long sticks. Whatever is ready (turkey, crocodile, chicken, ostrich, goat, beef, etc, etc) is taken around the restaurant and shared on everyone’s plates. Then again and again and again and again. The waiters (dressed in traditional animal-skin patterns) just do these rounds the whole night and tempt you with one delicacy after another, until you are DONE. When you feel like you cannot take ostrich meatballs any longer, you let them know by putting the flag down. And maybe calling an ambulance. And starting the meat lent for the next few months…

At that point, after almost two full days of flying and going strong, I was ready to collapse. Luckily my body had cooperated very well, so a good night’s sleep was going to do the trick. The next morning we visited the all-in-one Nairobi Museum (the first museum I ever saw in Africa), and learnt so much about this part of the world: the amazing, unique flora and fauna they have; the mind-blowing discoveries of early hominoid skeletons (the largest, most precious collection in the world); plus a well-crafted presentation about the composition of the Kenyan society (with their fascinating 42 tribes), as well as the history of the common fight for independence of East African countries in the 50s and 60s. Wow. Lots to take in, but so so interesting (really, the first structured, comprehensive institution in East Africa that has given me the bigger picture). Above everything else, though, I found out that I weigh as much as the hideous warthog, on the comparative scale of man-to-Kenyan wildlife. I would have probably preferred to be like a zebra at 120 kilos rather than be forever tied at 60 to the warthog, but what do you do… Eat more meat at Carnivore, probably, and expand accordingly…

The last few hours were out in the wild of the city – a lunch in the National Park, with the same ugly warthogs and hysterical baboons running around. I also immediately bonded with the on-duty Masai dancing group, and I learnt how to jump around and wear beads with dignity and boldness at the same time.

All in all – WOW Kenya!!!

FANTASTIC census results!!!!!!!!!

2010-12-08T02:10:00.000-08:00

This is the last Africa blog entry for 2010 - posted from Romania... We just got the fantastic gorilla census results yesterday. Here's the breaking news story I prepared for this momentous event:

http://gorillafund.org/Page.aspx?pid=846

THE Gorilla Transfer

2010-11-28T08:14:00.000-08:00

When I signed my contract in May, it all turned into this terrible frenzy: I HAD to show up here very early in June, to deal with the impending gorilla transfer. Six months later, due to a million reasons in two countries, it still hasn't happened (so it seems I have to come back in January to hopefully see it go to fruition).

Well, THAT transfer didn't happen (Grauer's gorillas, from Rwanda to DRC, by UN helicopters). This past week, though, we finally carried out the OTHER transfer: Mountain gorillas, from Rwanda to DRC (completely different location), by road.

And only because I am too lazy on this Sunday night, and because I have the material ready, here's the news story I wrote on the occasion:

http://gorillafund.org/Page.aspx?pid=844

Decadent Burundi

2010-11-18T21:09:00.000-08:00

I've slacked on this blog lately - simply due to too many travels. I know, when I am in Musanze more than a few days in a row, I feel so provincial and I want to start moving. And then - well, I end up on these never-ending trips and complicated border crossings. My passport is almost overflowing with stamps, btw. So yes, I thought that before I run out of pages, I should have it stamped in Burundi as well :-)

It had actually been on my mind for weeks now - Bujumbura and especially Tanganyika were too much of drag-names for me to pass on seeing them. And finally last Friday afternoon, after another crazy week, I got together with my Kenyan friend Beth and a new house mate from England - Katy - and started on the long journey south. There we were going to meet a Romanian (clujean, even) guy who works in Congo, and who was going to cross into Buja was well, and this Libyan guy who was flying in from Kigali. I was so tired that all I wanted to do was get great weather, lie at the beach, and sip expensive cocktails.

As luck has it, the day we drove south through extremely lush, green countryside, we ended up in this tornado-look-alike storm, so the first impressions on the shores of Tanganyika were - well, sort of like flooded Musanze. I could not believe I was still wearing my rain gear, instead of some beautiful beach attire. In any event, the welcome was glorious: Stefan, the Romanian guy, was a gracious host (with whom I also bonded immediately - fascinating, actually, to be able to speak your own language and make the same kind of stupid jokes after sooo much time). Later in the night, Issam, the Libyan, also showed up, with a ...shisha. He carried the pipe on the plane (!) and here we were, smoking ourselves into oblivion at the beach - mostly to warm up, actually.

The next day, Buja yielded sun and beautiful waves - so here I was, taking a dip into the world's second deepest lake (for the first, I'll have to go all the way to Siberia...) I started the day with an $8 mojito at the beautiful beach lounge Bora-Bora, and then I joined the group at Club du Lac Tanganyika, for a glamorous day at the pool. Kir Royal never tasted better, actually, than when accompanied by mint shisha and hot weather. Truly bubbly I was :-) I had indeed been given what I had hoped for: lazy day, beautiful weather, exclusive drinks. So mzungu-style, of course; but well, now-and-then this must also be sought after... Who would have thought that I would have my most glamorous, decadent Africa moments in tiny, poor Burundi...

Unfortunately it all lasted too short. The trip back was quit uneventful (OK, apart from 1) the fact that I almost got arrested for taking a picture of Stefan in front of the market (!), and 2) an accident we were in, but when you see how they drive over there, I consider myself lucky to only have been involved in something without human victims...)) To make time pass faster on the bus - I helped Beth undo her hundreds of braids - and I was even GREAT at it! (Next step - to have the guts to have some braided on my own head...)

After coming back, of course, nothing settled down: the first morning I spent with the gorillas and the second I traveled to Congo (and I swam for the first time in Kivu Lake, on the Congolese side). I am now dead tired, with a million deadlines pounding on me. But when I look out of the window of our fantastic villa, right onto the lake, I am just HAPPY :-)

Crazy Friday

2010-11-06T09:04:00.000-07:00

I had finally relaxed about Rwanda - such a peaceful, orderly country, where nothing bad ever happens. People behave and police is out there everywhere, making sure that everyone keeps behaving. Even the large gatherings and massive outdoor parties are so controlled and, well, just safe.

It seems, though, that when something bad happens here it doesn't even come in twos, but in threes - and that it does not hold back. And Friday was exactly like this - the most bizarre, painful string of events, that threw everything in the air.

The day for me started at the office at 6.30 a.m. in Musanze. I was due to prepare a lot of materials and send them to Atlanta with our CEO, who was visiting Rwanda with some very rich tourists/potential donors. I worked like a maniac the whole morning, and then I realized I needed to go to Kigali to get some things done at our office there as well. My Guatemalan boss, Juan Carlos, who had also spent the night in Musanze, was going to give me a lift. All fine and happy until we actually got word that one of the lady-tourists, who had trekked gorillas in the morning, had been 'attacked' and that a gorilla "took her arm out."

Now, since coming to Africa, I did hear some horrific stories about wildlife attacks - mostly chimpanzee-related - but after spending a lot of time around gorillas and the people who have known them for years, I was pretty reassured - they are HUGE, but so nice. Of course, a silverback would sometime 'charge', frightfully, but stop just in front of you (and yes, you get petrified, even more so thinking that he would whack your camera out). And yes, blackbacks come often to slap you - and they are soooo powerful, and the slaps do hurt, but you get over them.

All things considered "a gorilla-attack" sounded terribly serious and unbelievable at the same time. Plans changed, of course, in a heart-beat: we would all drive in a convoy to Kigali, and immediately have the lady examined by this mythical Belgian doctor - who has a clinic within the Belgian Embassy, in the fanciest part of the capital. He was actually nice enough to wait for us at the Serena Hotel (the Burj-al-Arab of Rwanda), where everyone was going to spend the night. He offered to take us to the clinic in his car - but Juan Carlos preferred that I and him drive further in his car.

Now, panic everywhere to get the lady treated, I still had the instinct to collect my back pack from the back seat and take it with me - which I would have not normally done, considering we were in the best guarded part of Kigali. Juan Carlos did leave his stuff inside, though. The next thing we would never do in Rwanda - park on the street, even if the guards urged us to go inside. No, no, we are only here for a couple of minutes, to get the lady inside. JC would then drop me off at the office of Kenya Airways, to sort out a mess-up with my return ticket to Europe.

Sure enough, that's exactly when they broke into his car. He lost everything: laptop, brand new passport (he had just traveled to Guatemala to get this resolved), American green card, keys to house and office, etc, etc. Everything. In front of an embassy, in front of guards!

In the midst of all confusion, the lady turned out to be fine - apparently she had just gotten a serious gorilla slap, but her skin being very fragile broke everywhere into bloody patches. Our worries had moved in a second though - how do you deal with this car break-in on a Friday night (at the same time, I could not count my blessings that I had taken with me my bag with laptop, phone, documents, plus the external drive with our whole gorilla photo archive...)

Helped by our Rwandan colleagues, we managed to locate the police-chief - somewhere so dodgy that you would expect to be robbed in a second. While waiting to get the report done, we see this girl in the corner of the room, crying her eyes out. Of course we all wondered what had happened to her and imagined the worst - until, a couple of minutes later, a police woman and man approached her and started hitting her with two sticks so hard that we were aching. Completely dumbstruck and embarrassed at the same time, we forgot about our worries and just felt like crying out - but what do you do when two police adults beat the hell out of a girl at the station, in full view?! What we gathered is that the girl was actually turned in by her mom, for misbehaving at home. HORRIFIC, of course. Even more so when they took her to lock her up.

All the while, our report was lingering - nothing could be done until the next morning - Saturday. The investigation would only begin on Monday...

So there, then: wildlife attack, car break-in and police brutality, all within a few hours of each other! Happy weekend, everyone!

When you go out for a beer and get served a cold genocide story

2010-11-02T23:51:00.000-07:00

Everyone back ‘home’ has repeatedly asked me how Rwandans today deal with their cruel recent history in their daily lives. And, to be honest, five months after arriving here, I still have a very confusing view on this subject. Just once I witnessed two colleagues have an open discussion about this horrific topic – and that was more in conjunction with the presidential elections in August and Kagame’s politics following the genocide. Otherwise, very rarely – maybe 3 times in total – have some people alluded to personal loss – but nothing about grieving. Everyone is seemingly fine and happy and certainly not taking any time to over-analyze anything. After all, “the past is the past and we cannot change it,” is the phrase I hear always in conjunction with this would-be discussion. I guess that when you are poor and sick and famished, it makes sense that your daily worries would be placed elsewhere. But still, it is hard for me to believe that issues do not exist, deeply ingrained everywhere. I was actually thinking the other day that if all NYC shrinks came over, they would have their plates full for years to come. Reconciliation and forgiveness on a personal level are still tall orders in this country. Not to mention personal grieving…

On the other hand, it is remarkable indeed how Rwanda has regenerated, on all levels, to the extent that it’s given as an example of “at the fore-front of Africa” in so many ways. At the same time, a new generation has basically taken over – everywhere you go, hordes of kids and teenagers, who have obviously not carried the burden of tragic memories. And then, when you finally assume that this is all you are ever going to experience on this subject, one evening you feel like having a beer and it all explodes.

His name is Jean-Claude, and he is a sweet 23-year-old bar-tender at the hippest bar in town. We often talk, but never touching on anything personal. Until last night, that is, when out of nowhere he felt like telling me about his family: rich father, who lost everything because of reparations he had to pay after killing a woman and two children in a car-crash; mother who died of “illness” (caught apparently in the DRC in the late 90s). And then him and his siblings: they were 9, now they are just 5. It is simply a number – 4 – “who died in the war”. I asked whether he knew how. He didn’t, because when all hell broke loose, they all ran for their lives in different directions. He was one of the lucky ones, who made it to the other end.

This is likely the story of so many families here, told so plainly that it seems almost so normal! What struck me with Jean-Claude was his sweetness when talking about his brothers and sisters. He remembers their faces, and how they all spoiled him, since he was the youngest. And yes, how they would talk about going to visit relatives “in country Belgique and Autriche”. And how, to their memory, he would like to honor their dreams and make it out there some day.

And then a sigh. The first I ever heard here! More compelling than a thousand complaints and feeling-sorry-for-ourselves – that we do so often ‘back home’.

It was definitely the hardest beer to drink, ever. And the coldest one, by far, even if I had ordered it from outside the fridge. Unaware, this young man had just served me the chilliest, most real night in Rwanda.

Film Crews

2010-10-29T05:15:00.001-07:00

I'm in the process of guiding the third film crew in five months, shooting documentaries on the mountain gorillas. This one is Travelscope, and it will air on PBS sometime next fall. It all sounds great and glamorous - but, actually, these people, just like the previous CNN-related people, HAVE NO CLUE!!! I would be ashamed to go in the field, half way across the world, not knowing the first thing about my subject. REALLY!

OK, maybe I am a bit over-demanding now - considering that I have grown so accustomed to my job lately, and that I finally feel I am on top of things (after months of figuring it out, especially the chaotic Congo-part). This morning, when I picked these people up, I was so confident and natural in saying "Welcome to Rwanda!". Just afterward I thought it might have seemed bizarre - especially as they were not expecting a white woman to greet them. HA!

Anyhow, it brings back the eternal dilemma: run around the globe, covering amazing stories for grand audiences (and being scolded like this in some random country, that you have no clue what the hell you talk about), or actually staying on this side of things: where you eventually become an expert (without formally being one), but your world will get so limited and self-centered (just like I wrote on FB lately, half of my daily conversations now revolve around the quality of gorilla fecal samples, that's how much I know about these guys already!) HA again!

Congo Mozaique

2010-10-19T21:09:00.000-07:00

I am resurfacing to the blog after a week in the Congolese middle-of-nowhere, with almost no internet access, a pretty bad food poisoning episode, and a plane to Goma canceled yesterday because of the fog.

Traveling between Butembo and Kasugho (or rather Katoyu, the small village where we care for the four orphaned gorillas) is always an adventure. Both ways, our mighty jeep narrowly and very luckily managed to by-pass a ton of trucks completely stuck (it’s been raining pretty badly) and also make its way through deep mud-ditches, ponds and rivers that appeared from nowhere. Quite impressive George, our driver, actually! After this trip, I do not want to hear any more discussions and complaints about bad roads in Europe or elsewhere outside Africa!

While in Katoyu, and before the food poisoning accident, I decided to spend a night out (we usually just cram into the kitchen and then retreat to our small, damp quarters and watch DVDs). Luckily we have a new vet now, Cyprian, from Kenya, who is very quiet during the day but who likes his upbeat evenings, so we left the house and traveled through the village to the pub. Now, Romanians, please imagine this: a mud-hut called Trianon (!), advertised by a poster of a gorilla wearing sun-glasses, where you meet a history teacher who would just not shut up about Mobutu and Ceausescu, and where your Ugandan beer companions are former Rwandan rebels-now-turned Congolese soldiers, who carry around rockets and rocket launchers. Deep breath, indeed! The whole thing really beat any possible surreal scenario!!! All the more so, considering that during the day I had interviewed tons of women who had given me their horrific stories about rape by rebels and soldiers. Enough crammed in a day to give you nightmares for a lifetime. Unfortunately, this is how Congo works: everything is RAW, and no-one has any time to over-analyze anything, because tomorrow you just have to find a way and move on with the roughest of the rough life imaginable, grind some manioc flour for your daily cassava bread, and just pray no flood or rebels or disease befall you. Again and again and again...

On the bright side: this week I saw for the first time how pineapple grows (and no, it’s not in a tree…) and I also for the first time used the machete in the field to cut myself some sugar cane – which, btw, has a SPLENDID, refreshing taste! I also took a field course in botany – so I now can identify most of the plants that grow around (including the kenkina (OK, have no idea how to spell that), from which they make the quinine to treat malaria (good to know there is a large stock of this plant in Congo).

Since I walked up and down the hills between villages until my knees were at break-point, I also managed to draw hordes of kids around. Well, most of them just come up and scream ‘mzungu’ from the top of their lungs, and when you turn to them they just burst into tears and start running away. Now I also know why: apparently, since the Belgian colonial times, parents would scare their children by telling them “if you are not nice the mzungu will come and take you away!” (Cum era bancul ala cu ‘ceasul 9 a sosit, omul negru a venit?’) Here I am, the ‘omul negru’ in Africa!!! Luckily there’s always “Carlos” – our 2-year-old-neighbor, who just drops everything when he sees us coming over and grabs our hand and just does not let go. He is beyond cute, and I would adopt him today! I am almost ashamed that I have such sturdy boots and he is bare-footed, and his little tiny feet are feeling all those rough stones, and yet he is running at my speed and smiling the whole time!!!

So yes, I am, at this point, beyond exhausted, and I feel like I could sleep for a week. Then again, when every single day is a God-given opportunity to get to know this fascinating country, who has any time to sleep?!?!

Business a la congolaise

2010-10-13T08:16:00.000-07:00

I may have spoken too soon when I declared on my FB page that I know I've lived in Africa long enough since the weird Rwanda-DRC border crossing starts seeming casual. Well, in a way I was right: I now fill out those forms rather carelessly and do not startle anymore when I see the frontier guys armed to their teeth. Also, I have become quite used to the notion that on the DRC side of things you just have to bribe - for whatever reason. I've stayed clear of trouble myself so far, but every time someone in my entourage had to produce $$$: may it be for the lack of the yellow fever certificate (which they ask for randomly as it is), some stamp that is missing, or trying to get out of having your bags opened and examined.

This morning, however, I had another funny experience I wasn't quite prepared for. Sandy and I were going to board a plane at 8 a.m., so our Goma logistics guy, Jackson, showed up at our residence to give us a lift quite early. Of course we got stuck in some mad traffic jam, but he insisted we would catch the flight - because they would simply wait for us if we're late. Quite reassured (!) we made it to the crazy airport, had our bags weighed, and then realized we are also charged for two extra bags - which were not there when we left the house. Jackson then explained that we are supposed to carry some "special mushrooms" and give the packs to someone who is going to wait for us when we land. Honestly, I didn't quite dare take the conversation any further and decided I would just play dumb and carry whatever weird plants/substances deep into Congo and see what happens. Luckily nothing bad happened - other than several officials on both sides feeling the fluffy packs and letting us get through. When we arrived in Butembo, some guy showed up to give us a lift.

He claimed he didn't know anything about us bringing "special mushrooms" packed in Champions League plastic bags, but that he knew the guy whose name was scribbled there, so we just dropped them bags in his car and moved on.

We are now waiting to be served dinner (we ordered at 4 to make sure we are getting it ready by 7) and then off we go tomorrow deep into the forest. More bribes to pay along the way - especially at the PEAGE check points. d="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5527560369701325506" />

Congolese Reverie

2010-10-10T09:00:00.001-07:00

I cannot give too many details on my flash visit to Goma this weekend, because I am still trying to process what happened to me there. But I can say that I finally discovered the Congolese rumba (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soukous) and that I AM IN LOVE! Dancing to those sensual beats, in the middle of a deserted, apocalyptic Goma-by-night, was really quite out of this world. At times, it felt like I was floating in some crater on the moon - this is how the city unveiled itself to me once the bustle of the working day was over. Everything pitch dark, ruins everywhere, black lava stones and gravel covering all 'roads' (Goma was destroyed in 2002 by the eruption of the neighboring Nyiragongo Volcano - which, incidentally, I intend to climb before leaving Africa, rebel-activity and lava-activity permitting.)

At times, lightnings would flash through and the roars of Kivu Lake would break the deadly, menacing silence. UN vehicles and prostitutes were the only other moving phantoms after midnight. It was the first time, actually, when I really stepped out of the car in that mad city, to walk a bit around. Bizarre and spectacular and dangerous and calm and definitely surreal - all at the same time. Movie stuff apparitions as I have never felt or experienced before anywhere else. All accompanying the douce lingala language of the wonderful rumba tunes, that I don't think I will ever release from my heart and mind.

My Utmost Rwanda Victory

2010-10-07T09:27:00.000-07:00

Today I performed a sheer act of courage in the forest: I finally dared go see Pablo's group!

Why has this been such an incredible moment? Well, for one, Pablo's is the largest mountain gorilla group anywhere in the world, with 45 individuals. A LOOOOOT! (By comparison, so far the largest group I had been in had below 15 individuals). The other thing that had kept me away all this time - well, they range pretty much at the very top of the mountain, so all I had heard were stories of struggle and pain on the part of everyone who has even gone to see them.

Considering that the rainy season is upon us and the forest will soon turn into this mud-pot, I decided it would be now or never, so that I could still catch the paths in a decent shape. So now it was, two days after I had been feverish (therefore no strength and serious breathing problems). Then again, when has anything been "as it should be" in my life?!

Luckily, as the bamboo shoot season is also near, and all the 9 gorilla groups we monitor are coming down to feed there, Pablo's was also on the descent. OK, so I cheated a little by not going all the way to the top. But OMG, was the hike CRAZY in any event!!!

My colleague Veronica was there to commiserate, and between IPod music and conversations in Italian we finally reached the group, after almost 3 hours of up-and-down through giant lobelias and thick nettles. Yes, painful at times, for sure, but all SO worth it.

Being surrounded by that many animals is indeed mind-blowing. Wherever you turn, a gorilla will be right there, watching you, brushing by you. Wherever you want to go, another one will either lead or follow you. Veronica, the gorilla expert, would ID them immediately after the nose print and give me the heads-up: this one is gentle, the other one may charge, etc, etc. You certainly don't want to mess with these HUGE creatures (a silverback in his all might would weigh up to 250 kilograms and have the power of 7 grown men)...

Luckily, apart from an interaction between the dominant silverback Cantsbee and a lost baby buffalo, everything turned out to be completely peaceful. The only damage - my knees, which are about to explode from the steep, rushed descent we had to make, in order to avoid the mother of all storms approaching fast. Quite an INCREDIBLE adventure, for sure, and one that opened my appetite for Pablo visits on a regular basis from now on!!!

Bed Time

2010-10-05T04:14:00.000-07:00

I’ve been sick for a few days – yes, CURENT exists also in Africa, especially when you travel on local buses in 35+ degree heat. It got to me right after returning from my trip to Uganda – but now, being Africa-savvy, I didn’t mistake the first cold symptoms for malaria anymore. Funnily, though, people here are urging me to go see a doctor – “after all, it could be malaria”. Little do they know about my CURENT-related ailments, which so far have not failed to strike on all three continents I have lived on (still, by FAR, I prefer the old-fashion CURENT over the terrible A/C!).

Treating my sore throat by gargling with salt did miracles this time as well
(for those of you who didn’t see my FB status update a few days ago, here – OMG, the modern medicine performed this 'revolutionary' study!!!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/health/28real.html?src=me&ref=general). So I was on my way to recovery, when I was tempted by my colleague Veronica to a glamorous Sunday in Gysenyi, at the beach of the famed Serena hotel. Knowing I’d get worse, but not being able to resist it, I went and played pretty on the shores of Kivu Lake, to the delight of some 50 Indian business men gathered around for a conference (I know, my luck!). At least I somehow evened the tan on my arms, after the terrible, careless burns I had gotten a couple of weeks beforehand.

In the evening, of course, I got worse, and now, 36 hours later, I am blogging at 5 a.m., completely feverish (I broke all records here, waking up even before the LOUD birds started doing their morning rounds).

So yes, forget going to see gorillas today (I was on the schedule that is being drafted every Friday for the following week and implemented VERY strictly). Hopefully I’ll get better by Thursday (hmmm, doubtful), in order to join Veronica to Kuryama’s group (my favorite so far, with three amazing silverbacks and scores of infants and juveniles, playing around for hours, absolutely delightfully).

Until then, though – bedtime, with movies! I have NEVER watched so many random DVDs, one after the other, after the other. It’s actually kind of cool (I wonder how people did field work in remote sites beforehand?!) Breakfast will be pancakes (Fais is spoiling me) and chamomile tea, so it’s really not all that bad in bed...

Uganda Safari

2010-09-29T08:08:00.000-07:00

It seems like Uganda has become a regular for long weekends during my time in Africa. Taking advantage of the fact that Katie, my boss, was leaving for the US, and that Meda had a few more days here, I just decided to take Friday and Monday off and embark on a real safari (yes, pretty much my first 'touristy'-like experience around here - costly, how else, but absolutely incredible).

These are some of the most memorable moments I managed to capture on camera in Queens Elisabeth National Park. Complemented by my other trip around Lake Mburu National Park last month, I can now safely say that I have a pretty good idea of what savanna is - and even more so what savanna FEELS, SMELLS and SOUNDS like. Quite addictive, actually - especially the very early mornings and late afternoons, when the plains are incredibly refreshing.

Cluj in Rwanda

2010-09-28T09:09:00.000-07:00

On my bus back from Kigali to Musanze this morning, I absolutely adored a radio conversation (in kinyarwanda, obviously, so one that I didn't understand pretty much anything from). However, I was very proud to hear the commentators talk extensively of CLUJ (world premiere, maybe?!) in connection with the Champions League game tonight (even more remarkably, against my all-time favorite team, AS ROMA). I will, of course, try and catch it later on TV - although, at how crazy Africans are for English teams, I assume all bars will just show Arsenal and Chelsea games. My consolation: that I will hopefully have tickets to watch the return leg, live, in Cluj, on Dec. 8, as my first post-African Cluj experience!

Swimming in An Exploding Lake

2010-09-19T22:47:00.000-07:00

I had already been on Lake Kivu shores several times, both in Rwanda and the DRC, but this weekend was the first time I actually swam in it. Together with Meda, we spent Saturday on the beautiful Gisenyi Serena Hotel beach, and decided to go for a dip in the beautiful - but EXPLODING - methane lake.

From the extensive scientific explanations, I pretty much only get the following (thanx Wikipedia):
"Scientists hypothesize that sufficient volcanic interaction with the lake's bottom water that has high gas concentrations would heat water, force the methane out of the water, spark a methane explosion, and trigger a nearly simultaneous release of carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide would then suffocate large numbers of people in the lake basin as the gases roll off the lake surface. It is also possible that the lake could spawn lake tsunamis as gas explodes out of it.

The risk posed by Lake Kivu began to be understood during the analysis of more recent events at Lake Nyos. Lake Kivu's methane was originally thought to be merely a cheap natural resource for export, and for the generation of cheap power. Once the mechanisms that caused lake overturns began to be understood, so did awareness of the risk the lake posed to the local population."

From the local folklore - well, dive and run away if the lake actually overturns (!). When I asked my Guatemalan boss a few weeks ago whether it was safe to swim there, he just answered "Define safe!"...

So, obviously, I was drawn to the experience (and so far, two days later, I am still seemingly unintoxicated and definitely in one piece). The only danger I was actually in while swimming in the very peaceful, warm waters: some crazy boat surfers, who almost knocked me over. The other "injury" I actually sustained myself: applying some sun-screen rather carelessly, I completely burned on half of my body, and remained pretty much white on the other half (a sun-protection factor of 30 is definitely required around the Equator, but SO not conducive to a beautiful tan...)

Otherwise, of course, the beach is also divided: the local hang-out place, which is always overcrowded with staring people, and the 'white hang-out place', where you are treated royally (and expensively). I would have totally gone for the former, but sometimes, in this overly populated country, you DO need a place just for yourself, without having to be constantly scrutinized and pointed fingers at. So the all-white place it was in the end, and the choice was just right. The downside, of course: you will always find incredibly annoying, loud Americans on the private beach, who are know-it-alls from early morning to late evening. Leaving them aside - wonderful day, asking for more of the same in the near future!

Swimming in Rwanda, with DRC land strip in the back...

A beautiful sunset a couple of weeks ago

Idyllic Lake Kivu shores from our house in Goma, DRC.

A not-so-idyllic work-day in Kivu Lake in Goma. Far, FAR away from where that NYC bag came from...

Sinziana

2010-09-15T08:45:00.000-07:00

I have spent my entire life explaining to everyone what "Sinziana" means, and I thought I had it all covered. This weekend, however, I found out there's a WAY more interesting approach to my name. The sweet Romanian explanations (name of flower, religious-pagan holiday, mystical night, etc) suddenly became complemented by a much more straightforward East-African meaning. In Swahili, KUSINZIA (stress the last "i") apparently means something like dozing off (how appropriate, actually, since I am a fan of naps), but the whole thing is actually going one step further. SINZIANA means something along the lines of "dozing off together with someone". So yes, to my utter shock, I was voted the girl with the sexiest name on the face of the Earth. It required lots of Tuskers to calm down and take it all in!

WEIRD BIG CITY MIX

2010-09-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

After three months of Musanze provincial life, I decided it was time for a big-city weekend. Kigali it was, of course, and the weekend was truly amazing.

Actually, it started already on Wednesday afternoon, when I was summoned to our Rwanda headquarters for several meetings. Luckily, the office is on the same beautiful property as my Guatemalan boss's private residence, so, before I realized, I spend two days a-la-Antigua together with him and his incredible family. Unfortunately, I was unable to produce much content in Spanish (since for the past months I've hung out mostly with Italians, so the mix is bad in my head again)... Otherwise, though, what a sweet family-style pre-weekend, with great Central American dishes, good wine, and lovely conversations.

On Friday, excitement was mounting: Meda, my good friend from Cluj, was supposed to arrive. Luckily, she had far less adventure than I did on my way to Africa, so I picked her up at the airport exactly on time, with all her luggage intact. We were invited to spend the weekend at Beth's - my Kenyan colleague - but as she was still engaged elsewhere, Meda and I chose one of the fanciest spots in Kigali for lunch, great Rwandan coffee-based products, and loooots of catching up. Bourbon Cafe was a real treat for several hours, just in preparation for the looong evening/night that was awaiting us.

Accompanied by Beth and a lovely Ugandan-Rwandan guy, Mujisha, we first had dinner at an Indian restaurant and then started the club-hopping phase, since Friday nights are really THE nights to party in Rwanda. But because we started too early (around 10), it took some 2 hours of trying and several spots of checking out until we finally got our stamps at KBC and unleashed the dancing for some 2 hours. Great music and amazingly-looking people, of course, but since Meda was falling apart after her journey we called it a night around 2.

Since this was also my first casual visit to Kigali, I was as much a tourist as she was. And what else do you do in the Rwandan capital on a Saturday morning other than spend it at the Genocide Memorial... BRRRRRRRRRRRR is all I can say about this place (just thinking that several hundred thousand people, hacked by machetes in a few weeks, are buried there, and you are pretty much at the end of your wits. Of course, the horrendous Belgian-connections were reinforced everywhere, so another weird experience on that topic.)

To somehow be able to complete the day without hitting utter depression, we went shopping - first for foods in a fancy and EXTREMELY expensive supermarket, then back to Bourbon Cafe for a... burger, and then to a souvenir shop (where, yes, I bought some green dresses and matching accessories.) Beth then convinced us to go get golden in a Senegalese back-alley store, so here we were buying long "vipuli" (yes, exactly, "ear-rings" in Swahili). All set for the night, we went out again - this time to the famous Kenyan joint in town.

Extremely tired and readily dizzy after a couple of Tusker beers, we started looking around and mingling. We were dearly adopted by these imposing men (all middle-aged, married, with wives back in Kenya...), who were all dishing out 'country-manager' business cards in different areas (airlines, auditing firms, etc.) It was just the best evening in terms of laughing since I got to Africa, and even if we just wanted to take it easy for a couple of hours, we ended up in this super cool club, Cadillac, way after midnight.

The adventure was just about to begin, though. Beth's landlady, who apparently has a ferocious dog let loose at night, would not pick up her phone at 2.30 a.m., which meant that we could not go back and open the gates to the property. Stranded in Kigali, we were rescued by Mutua, one of the guys in the group, who just offered us his PALACE for the night (some 20+ rooms that villa had...) Of course we all just slept peacefully!

:-)

Sunday morning, we invited Mujisha to a Romanian-type breakfast (with delicious salami Meda had brought over), and then we followed the trail of the odd-mixing weekend, by going to two villages (Ntamara and Nyamata) with more genocide memorials. These two, however, were haunting in a much more personal, direct way: the sites we visited were former Catholic churches, where Tutsis had hoped to find refuge, but where thousands of them were slaughtered instead. The buildings are full of blood stains and contain all the shredded clothes and decayed belongings of everyone who was butchered there. Honestly, the stench of death is still so pervasive that you get the creeps in a matter of seconds. The fact that you walk through shelves of skulls and walls of bones does not make it any easier............

So yes, clubbing and genocide memorials combined, this is what our fabulous weekend consisted of. I crowned it all with Amaretto (brought from Roma) and pufuleti (fetita cu bicicleta, of course, brought from Cluj), and returned to Musanze on Sunday night with a record two mosquito bites-only.

UNIQUE WEEK

2010-09-10T03:01:00.000-07:00

This has been a memorable week by all accounts – good and bad.

Thanks to President Paul Kagame (who won the elections last month by a landslide), we were going to have a day off on Monday and celebrate his being sworn in… Being bored at home, I came to the office to check emails, and that’s when all hell broke loose.

My colleague Veronica, the Gorilla Program Manager, came over in a frenzy, with the saddest news: Tuck, a 38-year-old matriarch, one of the most famous gorillas EVER, had just died. Of course, since this was a day off, no research assistants or data technicians were in the field, and we had no video or photo equipment out there either. In a matter of minutes, our boss, Katie, came over, fumigating, that this was completely unacceptable (Tuck had been sick for days, so we were kind of expecting the bad moment to happen). Only NOT on a holiday, of course.

So there… Since Veronica has a small baby at home and could not leave, and no one else was answering their phones, guess who had to leave the free day aside and get ready asap to climb the steep mountain… Yes, that’s right. In a few minutes they got me a car, driver, porters and military escort, and off we went.

And, OMG, what a day it turned out to be!!!

I, basically, became the first person in the world to EVER capture on video a mountain gorilla mourning ceremony. Absolutely heartbreaking, stunning, magical! I was there for some 5 hours, a few meters away from the dead body, seeing Tuck’s sons come and grieve, the big silverback kicking the body (trying to wake her up), the rest of the group calling her desperately… I simply could not believe what I was witnessing.

On the way down, I realized that I have this unique material in my hands, and the journalist in me was screaming. However, all that had to be put to rest… Since I have to have everything approved from Atlanta before posting it online, I knew the story would die then and there, since in the US they were also celebrating a day off (Labor Day weekend). Before they reacted in any way, 36 hours had passed… So sad, of course… However, this gave me time to go back the following day and see how the gorilla group was slowly moving away, and how the porters came to stealthily recover the body for necropsy. What an incredible sight, again…

I truly feel blessed to have been then and there. Once in a lifetime chance, of course! RIP Tuck!

Food Issues

2010-09-05T10:22:00.000-07:00

No, not those... My stomach has been remarkably cooperative since I came down here. But yes, I have had food issues - mostly in terms of getting used to the way you are supposed to search and/or order food.

In Uganda, I was in the hotel restaurant waiting for the "breakfast included" to be served, so when this lady showed up next to me and asked "breakfast?" I said "Yes" and smiled. She went on declaiming: "fruits, juice, eggs, bread, coffee." It all sounded excellent, so I nodded. She wouldn't budge though, and kept staring at me. I then realized that we had to take EVERY item and discuss it: what kind of fruits, juice, eggs, bread and coffee. I ended up with a huge plate of all fruits available (their ‘selection’ was actually ‘all-in-one’), passion fruit juice (the only one available, so I didn’t quite see the point of ‘discussing’ it), eggs (we agreed on “Spanish omelet”, which was anything but), toast (after I had asked for fresh bread), and Nescafe (after I had ordered “regular coffee”). But yes, it was all very good, of course :-)

The other thing that I became an expert in is ordering sodas. Here, you say “A coke, please”, and then you have to detail what kind of “coke” you meant (was it Fanta, Sprite, or actual Coca-Cola)?

But the thing that threw me off completely was this conversation I had yesterday in a ‘supermarket’ in Musanze (where only the white people usually shop):
-Je cherche du chocolat.
-Pour manger?
-Oui…
-Automatiquement ?

?!?!?!??!

Now, I am not sure how chocolate is consumed and/or served in all parts of the world, but from my pretty extensive traveling experiences, chocolate usually IS meant for eating. As for the “automatic” part – I continue to be baffled. Maybe this woman thought I was looking for chocolate powder (Nesquick-type) – so ‘instant’ instead of “automatic’?! In any event, now, whenever I take a bite, I think of mechanics instead of sweetness…

Some of The Most Striking DRC Visuals

2010-09-03T01:56:00.000-07:00

A Poster at a radio station

In a village, people are told to wash their hands with soap or ashes after returning from the loo (amazingly, I understood the message in Swahili!)

In another village, people are taught all about conservation

The all-in-one service in another village

The funkiest item in a 'supermarket' in Butembo. Note the Asian tea, featuring white people, aiming to get the black people going?!

A poster cautioning against sexual violence at a local village clinic... Amazing to see this right during the week when you read about the massive rebel gang rape against hundreds of women in Congo...

Small flag celebrating independence from the Belgians. Everyone is flying it in their cars.

Belgian Connections

2010-08-31T01:50:00.000-07:00

It is very unlikely, indeed, to go by even one day in either Rwanda or Congo without hearing something about the Belgian colonial past, and the Belgian this and Belgian that. It is all hitting a pretty personal chord with me (yes, you all know why), so I have developed quite a sensitive reaction to all this. Mostly, of course, I hear negative stuff, but there's one sweet component to it all - and I shall begin by mentioning exactly that.

Belgian chocolate NEVER tasted better than last week, when I found it in a Delhaize-type 'supermarket' in Goma, after months of deprivation (NO, there is no chocolate available on regular basis). I just rushed to the shelf and grabbed all the Cote D'Or available (cruelly overpriced, of course), and for two days I literally JUST ate chocolate, like a maniac (which I would NEVER do in 'real life'.) OK, chocolate and beer. I left the Hoegaarden and Leffe aside and I stuck to the local bottles, whose labels... celebrate 50 years since the independence from the Belgians. (Chocolate and beer, btw, seems to be quite the diet I am required to follow in order to 'expand' - as I have been instructed to do by all Africans I speak to.)

A few days later, in Butembo, we stayed for one night at this absolutely picturesque, romantic hotel - "Auberge Butembo". It lies high on a hill, above the mad city, surrounded by large, quiet gardens. When I inquired about its history, I found out that it was built by the... Belgians, and then bought by a very rich Congolese (one of the few things that the colonialists didn't manage to rip out of Congo...) The Dutch guy who was giving me the background info had to go one step further and make this comment: "It's like you're in Belgium. It even smells like the Belgians." Okay...

Otherwise - pretty much tales of horror and grotesque, of what the Belgians did and didn't do, and how these countries fell apart after they left Africa. On the other hand, they are acknowledged for coming back as part of the international efforts to, somehow, stabilize Eastern DRC. There is, however, no love-loss there. And the day when we'll get some sort of good news from Congo is still a loooong way away...

The Flying Circus In the Jungle

2010-08-25T02:32:00.000-07:00

It has been quite a remarkable last three days. On Sunday morning, I was picked up in Musanze by a caravan of safari vehicles, carrying VIPs from Disney and Turner Studios (indeed, I seem to meet la crème de la crème of America in Africa, rather than during all those years in NYC…) We drove to the border, crossed into the DRC (yes, the same adventure, always), and then the next day we took over the Goma airport: 11 people and some 35 pieces of HUMONGOUS luggage, all onto this tiny Tupolev plane direction Butembo. We were certainly the new flying circus taking over Congolese airspace, finding our small path through otherwise very busy UN helicopter and plane routes…

Once we landed, the Butembo “airport” (i.e. barrack) chief wanted to have a chat. He totally remembered me from the previous time, as the “only Romanian ever” around there. I also remembered him for a funny conversation:

He: So, do you have parks in Romania?
I: Yes, we do.
He: Do you have gorillas?
I: No, we don’t.
He: Do you have elephants?
I: No, we don’t.
He: Do you have rhinos?
I: No, we don’t.
He: So what the hell kind of park is THAT???

(And, as you do NOT want to piss off a Congolese, let alone one in some position of power, you have to just put on a naughty smile, be really humble, and admit that your parks really SUCK…I could not have won the argument either way, since he had no clue what our wolves and bears were anyhow…)

But yes, we chatted as very old buddies, Ceausescu and Mobutu included in the conversation, and off we went. The make-shift caravan was really impressive: all those roof-racks loaded beyond capacity, on some INCREDIBLY bumpy road, jumping up and down for some 5 hours. Luckily it is still the dry season, so we didn’t really have any problems getting stuck (just swerving like overweight ballerinas on the verge of scary ravines). We were ceremoniously led by Mwami Stuka and Mwami Mukosasenge– the paramount chiefs that own MASSIVE territories in Eastern Congo - so everyone in every village that we passed through was out greeting us with singing and dancing. QUITE SURREAL. When we finally reached Kasugho late afternoon, an amazing two-hour-show was staged. Everyone was present: the soldiers in a military parade; “the romantic children” who vowed to preserve nature; the women who lost their husbands in war and the women who had been raped by rebels, ready to show us around their “revival association”, etc, etc.

We are now on the third morning here. It is hard to keep up with remembering all faces, and especially all names, but they are all so very friendly, so a smile and a ‘jambo’ go a long way (my Swahili IS actually drastically improving here. My 10-word vocabulary became tenfold lately…)

We are here to stay through Friday, and then a drive down, a flight back, a border crossing, and another weekend in the field (this time in Rwanda) are on the schedule. I am literally EXHAUSTED, but soo-soo full of adrenaline at the same time.

Every evening, after 1-liter beers whose labels celebrate the 50th anniversary of DRC independence from Belgium, I also improve my British culture here. My best friend in Africa, Sandy, with whom I am now rooming, must be the best 2010 Amazon client. She has HUNDREDS of DVDs, many of which are British TV series that I have never heard of, but which are indeed HILARIOUS (and, luckily, have subtitles, because some of those people speak anything but English…) After indulging in “Benidorm” (about Brits on vacation in Spain (YUCKKKK!!!), which was so real to me after having seen them in Ibiza a couple of years ago), I have passed through “Early Doors” and am now onto “Gavin and Stacey”. The mornings after, I go for real-life references to Sandy (who is from Liverpool, but is ANYTHING but your typical Brit), so here’s how a Romanian is enriching her UK knowledge all the way into the Congolese jungle. I guess that speaks for globalization in the most direct, uncompromising way :-)

Paka analala

2010-08-21T08:16:00.000-07:00

After two months and several dozen dollars, today I finally felt that my Swahili classes had been worth it: I learnt how to describe the most acute reality of our Musanze life. PAKA ANALALA. The cat is sleeping. BECAUSE, we have this cat, an emigrant from the DRC, called Goma, who just must be the laziest cat on the face of the earth. And the most possessive one. OK, also the most adorable one. The very moment you sit down, she takes over. It does not matter whether you wax your hiking boots or try to learn some Swahili. Goma will ALWAYS be there, on your lap. And try to remove her, because you simply cannot. Another housemate must come by, so that she change laps (although, I suspect she kind of likes me in particular ;)) So, if I have a devoted rafiki (friend) around here, then surely Goma is the one.

My First Vocalizations

2010-08-17T08:59:00.000-07:00

Remember that scene in "Gorillas in the Mist" when the hot National Geographic photographer enters Dian Fossey's cabin for the first time and finds her on the floor, imitating gorilla postures and sounds? I think about that EVERY time I am in the field and hear the trekkers do appeasing vocalizations around the animals, but until today I found it rather ridiculous to do it myself. However, this morning I gathered all my courage and gorilla-prone talent and started speaking to them. I didn't get very far, though - the two silverbacks I was supposed to photograph today (for nose-prints) were very reclusive, hiding deeply in the thick bush during the hottest hours. When we followed one a bit in the open, he actually TOLD US OFF (!!!) (luckily I recognized his vocal intent), so we had to back away (something I am not very used to - generally speaking, in life...) So I was left with the young ones instead - and they are beyond CUTE! However, I'd better practice gorilla-language from now on - I'm sure I'll be better at it than at any other African language I've tried so far!

Congo Iniesta-Look-Alike

2010-08-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

Does anyone else think this cute boy looks like Iniesta? (DO NOT ASK WHO INIESTA IS!!!). I have no idea of his real name, but I found him in the Congolese wilderness, by the nickname of "Carlos". He always comes out running of his hut to come shake mzungus' hands when we go by. On Sunday, he was wearing this very impressive suit, while his shoes were left on the right foot and vice-versa...

Bigger IS Better

2010-08-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

I forgot to give this sound piece of advice on Uganda: take BIG dollar notes with you when you travel there (and forget euros, they don't count). Maybe it's the same all over Africa (except Congo, where they actually use $US as regular currency), but I can only speak for Uganda so far: I had some $US50, $US100 and then smaller $US bills, thinking that it's easier to manipulate them. WRONG. At the bank, where I wanted to change shillings, the rate they give you is absolute CRAP for "small notes" such as 20, 10, 5 ($US 1 is not even recognized). So yes, bank on those hundreds to get you a good shilling return. Otherwise - cheap country (compared to Rwanda anything will be cheap, I guess), so enjoy your travels!!!

Uganda - A Different Africa

2010-08-10T08:53:00.000-07:00

Ever since I got to green, mountainous, chilly Western Rwanda, I have hoped for an opportunity to travel around and see “the other Africa” – the plains, the savannas, the scorching heat, the large mammals running around (yes, that cliché images we all have engrained from Animal Planet, etc). So I certainly jumped to the opportunity of a long weekend here (elections time, another post for that). We, mzungus, have been warned to either keep a low profile or leave the country altogether. Knowing myself, I could only go for the second option.

After fishing around, I went onboard a splendid travel idea: go to Uganda (the border is just 25 kilometers from where I live) together with my colleague Joseph and his roommate Innocent. Both of them were born and grew up in the Mbarara region, as children of Rwandan Tutsi emigrants from the 1960s (when the “first genocide” occurred here). So yes, savannas in their backyards, and history in the making. Plus the promise of loots of cold beers and amazing clubbing scene. Sounded very promising, right?

And it certainly was a crazy weekend – from the roads, to the driving, to the music. Now that I am an expert in African matters, I can certainly draw comparisons.

I have been warned, to begin with, that I would be shocked at the sight of dust in south-western Uganda. I didn’t want to quite believe it, since I had seen “the worst” in Congo, but I was soon rebuked in my beliefs (NEVER take anything for granted in Africa!!!) Basically, the road for most part is this pot-holed red-sandy soil, which, given the dry season, is constantly changing consistency. When a car (and even worse, a truck) bypasses you, you really feel like you’re being pushed off the course, whilst trying to make some sense of direction in this HUGE dusty cloud that hangs over for minutes. Since I was in the passenger’s seat on a left-wheel-car in a country where they also drive on the left, the image of these trucks coming directly at me and overtaking like crazy (NO RULE is the rule) was actually quite scary. Add to that the POUNDING music in the car (we had this one CD with Ugandan hip-hop and house music that we played for three days straight, at top volume), and yes, it was INTENSE.

The guys took turns at driving (I refrained, thank you very much), and drinking, and for most part they also remembered which side of the road the traffic was on (not always, though, which was OK, apparently because everyone else was driving as they pleased, crossing each other from all directions, cutting lanes, overtaking FREELY.) The heat unbearable, we would stop every hour or so to get cold beers and wash the dust off – and yes, even to see Chelsea-Manchester in a road-restaurant, at some weird afternoon hour. I was warned from the very beginning that corruption being so high in Uganda (unlike in orderly Rwanda), traffic police would be the least of our worries.

We did have an eventful encounter, though, on Saturday morning, on this actually good road that goes to Kampala. We stopped at some random village corner and picked up this guy, whom I later understood was Joseph’s brother. All I knew of him was that he owns large cattle herds and is a feared poacher at the side (funny family, Joseph the ultimate conservationist, his brother the ultimate poacher). The guy (also Innocent), takes the wheel and starts off very confidently, on this road along which all of a sudden zebras and antelopes started showing up (yes, I know, WOW!). What also showed up was this very professional-looking Ugandan traffic-police-patrol: three very black guys dressed in very white, shiny uniforms. They pull us over, and come towards the driver in a frenzy. They order him to stop the engine, give away the keys, and show his driving license – which he cannot produce, since he doesn’t have any! At that point, I am thinking, does this guy do anything legal in life?! Not that much, of course, since everyone rushes out-of-the-car and start bribing the police, to let us go. Nothing THAT weird for me, as a Romanian. What I found funny, though, was that we left, some half-an-hour-later, with the same Innocent driving, in full-police view (his claim was that if he now bribed the men, he also earned his right to keep driving without a license?!?).

He was a completely amazing guide, though. For the rest of the day, he drove us through only-God-known savanna paths, in the middle of wildlife herds. I simply could not believe what I was seeing – vast, desolate, scorched lands, without any mzungu tourist interference. Just incredible, wild animals, mingling with farmers’ even-more-amazing Ankole-Watusi cattle. The treat of the night would be at Innocent’s very remote house: the BEST goat meat I have ever had, grilled under a huge cactus tree. Innocent’s wife was just beyond herself at the sight of a white person (she said she didn’t even know how to imagine one.) She held my hand and felt my skin all evening long. With my other hand I became quite good at maneuvering the famed poaching knife. Next time, I can see some illegal hunting going on (ha!).

As for the clubbing scene – I left it mostly to the guys. At 2 a.m., when they were ready to head out, I was kind of ready to turn in. Unluckily, my mosquito net did have some holes in it (which I tried the best I could to mend, but since power was out and everything was pitch black, I didn’t do that good a job). I am now counting some 5 bites (granted, some of them are ‘my fault”, since on the third night I forgot to put repellent on), so yes, testing times ahead… But who cares, right, when I had the most amazing experiences, in the savanna, and then at beautiful Lake Bunyonyi (the resort is manicured just like a Swiss resort).

On the way back, I did push it a bit as well. Some two weeks ago, I had heard this phenomenal story from an American guy: he was coming down from Uganda to Rwanda, but his taxi-driver made a mistake and dropped him off instead at the Congolese border. Unaware of what he was doing, he started crossing on foot, until he saw a sign “Welcome to ZAIRE!” (!!!!) and realized he was not going to the right country. When he eventually showed up in Musanze and told me this story, I was SOOO taken with the idea of the “ZAIRE” sign that yesterday I also wanted to cross that border ‘by mistake” as well. So we drove off some 30 kilometers, through banana fields and dust clouds, just to come to this other side of Uganda. Of course I got into trouble – first of all on their side, where I lied that I just needed to go across for five minutes and collect some paper from a guy ‘waiting for me’ in Zaire (ha!). They didn’t quite understand, but they did let me go, closely scrutinized by this guard. The Congolese, though, were very unfriendly (even if I do have a DRC visa), and kind of wanted money, until a Rwandan came to my rescue and “understood” I had made a border mistake. Unluckily, I could not see any ZAIRE signs, so now I am thinking that either the American lied (kind of hard to imagine you’d come up with such a crazy story out-of-nowhere), or I actually did go to the wrong-wrong border crossing. Or, who knows, the Congolese will have realized in the last two weeks that their country name had changed some 13 years ago?!

But yes, now that I am back to peaceful Rwanda (AND THAT IS A FACT), with Ugandan house music all over my brain, I am ready for “normal life” again: forest, gorillas, GREEN!!!

Black vs. White Beauty (And What We Do In Order To Achieve It)…

2010-08-03T00:11:00.000-07:00

How many of you, mzungus, have ever listed “beautiful skin” among your top three things you are attracted to in a person of the opposite sex? I mean, think about it: we may go for beautiful hair, eyes, hands, big breasts, toned abs, long legs, etc, but not so much for beautiful skin, right?!

Well, not the same in the black world. I had, of course, noticed beautiful, shiny, flawless skin in black people before, but it was never a focus of my observation. Until, a couple of weeks ago, I started this seemingly never-ending conversation with Joseph, a colleague from work. I was trying to say to him that I have found many beautiful people in Rwanda, and he was asking me to point to some of them, but then he would just dismiss all my choices. One of his arguments was that their skin was not perfect.

OK, so I started focusing on the skin. And OH MY GOD!!! I can only dream of shiny skin ever since (forget it, mzungus, we’ll never be there, despite all the sun tanning and all the oils we may apply). And in so focusing my attention, it also dawned on me that this people have absolutely no hair on their bodies (I mean none even on the face or on the arms). OK, so I went back to Bernadette, a female colleague, and asked her where I can wax in Rwanda. She went “what is waxing?” I tried explaining, and she was completely stunned. There she was, this 25-year-old-beauty, who never had to remove one hair from her body. EVER.

OK, I still didn’t quite want to accept my predicament, so I kept searching. In a very strange twist of events, Joseph was the one to enlighten me, again. On Friday night, we went to this massive beach party at Lake Kivu (on a different note, HOW SURREAL it is for me to dance until dawn to Ugandan beats on the border between Rwanda and the DRC!!!!) It was something like the biggest, poshest event of the year, so all the cool people in Central Africa were there. Among them – yes, those beauties, in sparkling clothes, and with that perfect skin (and I, in jeans and fleece…) For those of you who know my obsession with beautiful Beyonce – well, there were several dozens around, and then some. Of course, those African curves are not really my thing, but who cares, I was all into skin by then.

Before hitting the dance floor (i.e. the sand), Joseph started telling me that on his recent trip to the US (the first he ever took outside Africa) he had heard two women talk about shaving their legs. “So?,” I said? “So all white women shave their legs?” “Well, most of us would either shave or wax, yes.” He was shocked. “What is waxing?”

Thank God for the whisky I was having, because this was turning a bit beyond belief. I gave as accurate explanations as possible, but he absolutely needed to touch and closely examine the skin on my legs in order to really quite get it (and NO, it was not an excuse to touch my legs!!!). He confessed he had never touched a white person before (!), so he was endearingly curious (while I was feeling as some sort of a derailed museum-material)… He then felt like he had to ask me if I had done a “boob job” as well, because he saw in the movies that white women also do THAT. (All I can think of in this context is the utter expression of despair which I recently learned from a hilarious British series: “CHRIST ON A BIKE!!!”)

The whole thing continued the day after, when I went for a swim in one of the hotels in Musanze. The hotel personnel, men and women alike, had all lined up and started staring. I have a hunch they also called their relatives and friends, because soon the property was filling up with veeery curious-looking people. At least, they were sort of enjoying it (I know, gross). But I am saying that in light of what happened to me on Monday morning, when I started hiking to the forest. I was wearing sun-glasses and my hoodie, which obviously scared the hell out of a local kid. He was in the potato fields, bare-footed, carrying a shovel twice as big as him. When he saw me, still quite far away, flanked by soldiers and black colleagues, he totally started screaming and running away, looking back in complete fright. I still want to believe I am not THAT ugly as to scare African kids like that. But, well, some evidence seems to point to the contrary… (The rest of them usually just wave at me and say the only thing they know in English: “good morning, teacher!”, regardless of the time of the day and place where we meet.)

But yes, I felt like I needed some help in my quest for beauty here, so I brought this all up with a new Italian friend of mine, Alberto, over a meticulously crafted cappuccino this Sunday. Alberto, who has been here almost three years, obviously has a much better understanding of this phenomenon, so his expertise was overwhelming: “Questi rwandesi, quando sono belli, sono belli” (I TOTALLY agree), “e quando sono brutti, sono brutti” (I EVEN MORE TOTALLY agree). Basically, he could have just as well said “quando sono tutsi, sono belli, quando sono hutu, sono brutti”. I AM SORRY, but this is pretty much how it is, even if we are not supposed to voice any sort of comments on race and ethnicity!!! But yes, I can completely understand those Belgian colonialists some hundred years ago, totally baffled at how RADICALLY different these two kinds of Rwandans actually were. They did go a bit too far, yes, when they started measuring them and categorizing them, and giving them separate identity cards and different status in the society (which, eventually led to the horrific things we all know about). But I totally get their curiosity about these HUGE differences in looks. (Joseph’s explanation about the tutsi look goes back to the same thing, again: that they been privileged enough to have access to milk, therefore they have this beautiful skin. And yes, he did ask me if I used to drink milk in Europe, and I said yes, and I actually realized that I am missing it here – it IS a luxury…)

So yes, if you ever hear that Rwandan girls are the most beautiful in Africa, DO BELIEVE THAT!!! I have no holistic expertise, but men of every African nation I have met so far say that, and I guess for a very good reason. Men are not too bad either – yes, those very tall, slim, powerful guys are the ones I notice. I am sorry if pretty much all of them turn out to be Tutsis…

As for myself, I am now closely analyzing my size, my weight, my skin, my everything. It is really quite a remarkable self-rediscovery process. Go figure, turning into an unwilling narcissist in Rwanda!!!

My very green, GREEN card :-)

2010-07-30T08:35:00.000-07:00

I may have never gotten one in the US, but I certainly made it in Africa!!! As of today, July 30, 2010, I am a Rwandan resident (well, Rwandan foreign resident)!!! YUHUUU!!! Well, I don't quite know what all of this means, other than that I will have certain discounts for trips and savanna park entries. I hope it doesn't also mean I have to start paying taxes here?! In any case, I have never been as excited about a document before. This is, indeed, the greenest ID ever imaginable (you will notice that, by coincidence, even the photo is taken against a green background, while I was wearing a green top...) What were the odds, right... I just have to figure out now how I can carry this thing around, since folding it does not seem to be an option?!

In light of one of my previous entries, I must add that the immigration officer, a very sexy, tall, married man by the name of Andrew, was filling in my papers while offering life advice. I was duly informed that "there are many young, single, cute Rwandan men", and that I should totally forget about going back and just stay and build a future here. He assured me that, once married, citizenship will not be a problem whatsoever... I imagine that another Rwandan is all this place needs, if we consider how densely populated the country already is!

Jungle Graveyard

2010-07-28T08:33:00.000-07:00

I didn’t quite expect that my first ever anthropo-archeological experience would take place in a gorilla graveyard, at an altitude of 3,000 m, in the most incredible, eerie forest on the face of the earth.

We started up at 7 a.m. on Monday morning, with a team of specialists from George Washington University. Leaving their PhDs aside, we can also call them “the bone people”. They’ve been here for several weeks, and they have dug up several gorilla skeletons, in order to study their disease history and stuff. This Monday was going to be very special, though: for the first time we would take the gorilla remains out from the original cemetery, where Dian Fossey is also buried. On top of that, this grave (belonging to one of the legendary silverbacks in Rwanda) had been desecrated in March, so the surprise element was eating at us all. Would we find something/anything?

Once the cars dropped us off at the edge of the park, after a terribly bumpy ride, we hired six porters from the village for our heavy equipment (now that I also have a big telescopic lens for my camera, I also need someone to carry my stuff up. Honestly, every hundred grams less makes a difference when you hike like this). Of course these guys ran us up the mountain like crazy, so my idea of being fit took a hard blow, when I was left breathless (of course, I keep saying to myself that the horrible pneumonia I had last fall still has something to do with the fact that I get tired unusually fast, and I never seem to get enough air in my lungs).

After a couple of quick breaks, we entered the park and then this movie-set Hagenia forest. Simply breathtaking (on the positive note, this time). After about an hour, we reached the old camp site, which Dian Fossey set up and ran, and which was completely looted and then destroyed during the 90s. Luckily this is still the dry season, so the paths were decent, although the soil does get swampy here and there. I was sweating like crazy and freezing at the same time, so I didn’t quite know how to negotiate between my fleece, pullover and rain jacket, other than on-and-off several times.

A short walk later, and here we were at the gorilla graveyard. Dian started it when she buried Digit, her favorite silverback, killed by poachers in 1978. She was later buried here herself. Since then, the place has become a true pilgrimage site (an expensive one too, at about $75/person).

The American scientists were quick to set-up and explain to everyone that since the grave had been desecrated, this was going to be an unusually delicate operation. Basically, two women would scrape the entire surface just with trowels, while all the men would either sit around and watch, or sift the stuff dug up. Considering that this was a massive pit and the pace very slow, we were all bracing for a very long day (well, couple of days).

Trying to warm up in the freezing temperatures, everyone was guessing away the reasons for which the locals would have dug up the gorilla skeleton. Someone offered that it was surely to sell it to a collector, while someone else believed it was for a much more pragmatic reason: the villagers will have wanted the blanket in which the silverback had been carried, and which they assumed would have been buried in the pit as well.

The operation did indeed, take a veeery long time. All the while I fussed around, took lovely pictures of everyone and everything, and at the same time cursed the fact that no one else around seemed able to take a decent picture of myself (for the millionth time, HOW HARD CAN IT BE TO POINT AND SHOOT, on a really fast, accurate camera?!?!?!) But leaving my photographic frustration and the freezing cold aside, I did enjoy the day to the most. It was then and there, in that magical forest, that I knew I had made the right decision for Africa. My life-long dream to be in such a fabulous place had indeed become TRUE.

On a more mundane level, it is definitely noteworthy that my lunch consisted of a slice of by-then almost frozen pizza (this is certainly one of the most unusual places where anyone will have ever had pizza…) Although dehydrated, I almost didn’t have any water up there, since that bottle was colder than the vodka bottle I usually keep in the freezer.

Notwithstanding all this, the two American women were quite amazing, digging upside down for hours. First a tooth, then a pile of hair, and finally, on the second day, the real body started appearing. Turns out the looters had only snatched the head, so everything else was pretty much in order. We now have the skeleton remains in the garage, in my backyard, so the story certainly goes on, in quite an intimate way…

My Prospects

2010-07-24T00:48:00.000-07:00

After my visit last year to Guatemala – where every man, married or single, broke every conversation by “how old are you?” and “are you married?” -, I was expecting a surge of intimate questions in Africa as well. To my surprise, men in Rwanda tend to be somewhat more reserve, while the ones in Congo don’t need to ask anything. They just go straight for the grabs. (Ironically enough, I had to ‘complain” about the Congolese’ “sexual harassment” last week to my boss in Kigali, who is, actually…. Guatemalan. He has put all my Congo travel on hold until we ‘re-evaluate the situation’.)

Anyhow, yesterday I was out in the field, to an area called Bisate, just next to the Volcanoes National Park. We were visiting a school in order to inaugurate a new classroom block (which replaces the old mud structure that collapsed last year). While I was on tour with my camera, this teacher approaches me and asks about my age and marital status. I deducted two years, in order to not shock the guy two much, and I did say I was not married. The stunned look on his face was priceless. Probably not as much though as the one on my face, when he asked, in broken English, “And your prospects?!”

Aha, “my prospects”… In an instant I flew back to my apartment building in Cluj, where some five years ago a concerned neighbor was asking me “dar perspective ai?” I guess I could fool that guy, but this teacher had me hooked. So there I was, the white woman (I am reminded EVERY day of how different my skin color is), supposedly in control of the situation, totally humbled by the lack of prospects…

It is funny, indeed, how we (the whites) are viewed here. (If you are into political correctness, stop reading!) Everywhere you go, people in the streets will call you “mzungu” and start pointing at you. According to Wikipedia, the word in Swahili actually means “person of European descent who roams around aimlessly”. It came to signify “white”. So I can imagine that many locals would think that we are actually here without any prospects (personal ones, in the first place). Sort of, those guys who just couldn’t get a life in the white world and came down here to feel good about themselves. They all assume, however, that we are loaded (which is a funny concept, considering that many whites just volunteer here).

So yes, I predict a busy weekend coming up, since I will have to define some sort of prospects for myself, to be able to live up to the tough questions next time :-)

Me and My Private Soldier :-)

2010-07-17T01:02:00.000-07:00

First Day in the Volcanoes National Park

2010-07-16T05:52:00.000-07:00

After a few weeks of bureaucracy, I finally received the park permit last week. It will allow me to enter for free in the next six months and visit all animal groups (gorillas, monkeys, buffaloes, elephants, antelopes, etc).

I decided to take it easy, so yesterday I chose the golden monkeys. They live only in Central Africa, and they are endangered - of course. At least in Rwanda they are not poached for bush-meat (unlike in neighboring DRC)...

What I didn't realize was that being a "mzungu" I needed a special escort in the park. All Rwandans (researchers and students) could go right ahead, whereas I needed a guy with a gun. I was, actually, quite taken with the idea. For the first time in my life I would have "my own soldier".

The monkeys were ranging somewhere around 2,600 m in altitude (which is higher than the highest mountain peak in Romania), but the hike was relatively easy. Until the park border we had to meander through village crops (mostly potatoes), and then we reached the bamboo area.

Walking through that vegetation is sooo different from any other forest experience I had before. The bamboo stems seem so fragile, but they are so sturdy and so dense. At times it felt like we were going beneath a stack of spears. I also learnt, the hard way, that fern stems sting like crazy.

We reached the monkey group around 11 a.m. and stayed with them (or chased them) for a couple of hours. They are such cute, funny animals!!! And although they come very close to you, they are so hard to photograph, as they just won't sit still for one second. Or they'll be obscured by thick vegetation, even if they are less than a meter away. I was imagining already how hard it would be to shoot a documentary on them. It would take days, or even weeks, for some decent footage.

I did get some good pics, though, and I also managed not to get peed on (I understand they love peeing on the people underneath the trees). And yes, I also did have a swell time with my private soldier (professionally only, of course). He now says he'll put in a request to always accompany me from now on :))

Landing in Butembo, DRC. Quite THE experience

2010-07-13T22:00:00.000-07:00

Malaria

2010-07-07T02:17:00.001-07:00

When you are in Africa and wake up in the morning with fever, chills, nausea and diarrhea, and when you have obsessed for weeks about that ONE mosquito bite on your leg, you do have to consider the worst… Yes, malaria!

Although the areas where I’ve been are mostly high-up, therefore with a pretty low risk of getting this disease, it is certainly around. And it is not to toy with!!!

Since I gave up prophylaxis around mid-June (I really didn’t feel like popping antibiotics daily for so many months), I sort of relaxed about this altogether. But Friday morning, right before I was supposed to sit in our staff meeting, I did have a panic attack: what if I actually have it?!

My colleagues quickly arranged a car to take me to the local hospital –where, supposedly, they are very good at diagnosing malaria within half-an-hour, after getting a drop of blood from the tip of your finger. A co-worker, Emmanuel, joined me, as I wasn’t going to do too well on my own. I was actually about to collapse with fatigue, fever and teary eyes.

During our short ride, both Emmanuel and Bosco, the driver – a guy with whom I watch football normally and who was stunned to see me so weak all of a sudden – were trying to reassure me that I don’t have malaria. They both, obviously, had had it many times, and they were vividly describing the worst states they had been in. Honestly, I wasn’t feeling that reassured. I just wanted to give my drop of blood and set my mind at peace. Scientifically.

Only that Rwandan public health care is not as straightforward as I had been let to believe. It is actually pretty close to what I had experienced many times in Romania: long, chaotic lines, and a myriad of offices which must register you and give you the go-ahead to the next one… The only difference: corridors are open, so you can breathe fresh air and look into beautiful, green gardens. Oh, and another small detail: people don’t push and don’t yell at each other. They just sit there, resigned to the fact that it’ll be a looong day. So I really didn’t want to be the white bitch who would cut in front of everyone, and Emmanuel was obviously not the kind of assertive guy I would have needed in order to get moving faster, so, here I was, spending about 4 hours in the morning in order to get to see a Congolese lady doctor and then be sent to the lab and give much more blood than I had anticipated. I was so dizzy by that time that I didn’t even realize that they took blood only from my arm, and not from the tip of the finger. Oh well, I counted my blessings when I was out-of-there, only to have to return 2 hours later for the results. I spent my lunch-hour without eating, but half-listening to more and more people giving me their malaria stories, from across Africa. The guards and the cook and another driver and two expats who were around were all sure that I was going to be “just fine”.

Once back at the hospital, and after another line at the lab, I finally got the piece of paper, where the only thing scribbled was “RAS”, under the “positive” column. So while standing in yet another line in order to see the Congolese doctor again, I was trying to remember all the acronyms of all possible diseases and germs I had read about. What the hell was RAS?! And was it really positive? Was I really THAT unlucky, to get sick from the one and only mosquito bite I had gotten in five weeks in Africa?

Finally it was my turn to go inside. The doctor seemed completely relaxed when she saw the paper. I thought, “not another one who has had malaria endless times, and for whom this is nothing THAT scary”.

As it turned out, I was fine. RAS was nothing more than… “Rien A Signaler”!!! They should totally teach THIS acronym in guide books in the future and save people from panicking like I did…

In my euphoria I did remember to mention to the doctor that I had only given blood from my arm – which she didn’t take all that well. Basically, she confirmed that I could still very well be just in the incubation period (which can last from a few weeks up to a year), and that I should go back if I feel sick again… No kidding! In the meantime, I would just have to tend to my cold and dehydration the old-fashioned way…

On the bright side: Senzane Domman is, as of last Friday, a proud registered patient of the Musanze Hospital, with updated records and all. I am 32, and I weigh 57 kilos (when I said 55 the nurse looked up in disbelief and asked “only?”, so I had to adjust my figure until she was content). Supposedly, next time I will be fatigued, feverish and nauseated I can just present my “carte du patient” and skip a few lines…

White vs. Black Pubs

2010-07-01T23:12:00.000-07:00

Since it's the World Cup, and since having cable at home is apparently very expensive (around $100/month I've been told), I had to look for venues to watch the games. Places are divided into "mzungus" ("white") pubs (i.e. "Bar de Albi", ca sa ma refer la o veche zicala romaneasca, intoarsa pe dos) and local pubs. Of course, I first went with the white crowd to the most accessible places, just a few minutes away from my house. One of them in this category is actually run by a Moroccan (he was delighted when I told him I visited his country a few months ago), and there's promise of couscous and tajine dishes on the menu in a few days (he even offered to cook some for me and a few of my friends one evening, before they are officially released). Until now, though, there have been brochettes, pizzas, lots of beer (Mutzig, Primus and Amstel), and double Red Label whiskey (they don't serve it in any other quantity...)

After a few nights around these places, one of my colleagues, Joseph, decided it was time for me to venture out to the local pubs, so he gave me lifts and introduced me to his friends. First we went to a Kenyan bar, where the top of the beer menu was warm Skol beer (!), but then he recommended the best place in town for pork and cheap whiskey in large quantities. So here we were, at the end of this dirt-road full of pot-holes, in an upstairs lounge, that looked pretty much like a private dining-room, being served royally. I didn't quite understand the thing with measuring alcohol, so I asked for a glass of Martini, which greatly confused the waitress. Joseph explained again that here "a glass" will actually be a 330 ml bottle, that you can take at home, if you cannot have it all on the spot. Somehow the idea intimidated me a bit, so I just settled for some whiskey from his own carry-on bottle.

Time for Some Pictures

2010-06-22T00:05:00.000-07:00

A quick look at Musanze: our house and garden in the morning.

My New Hometown

2010-06-20T09:17:00.000-07:00

I finally had time this weekend to check out my new "hometown", Musanze. It recently changed its name from Ruhengeri, and it is famous as the base-camp for tourists who want to venture out and see the Mountain Gorillas. Several expensive hotels line up along the main street (which is paved, but still very dusty and noisy), and then a grid system spans out into the residential areas.

I live and work on Avenue de Cooperation, which has nice villas on both sides, gated and guarded, and circled by wonderful gardens each. Our residence, pretty like most other houses here, is built just on the ground floor, with two main aisles divided into several rooms, plus a huge kitchen and a lovely dining room. As far as I can tell, we are four people living there 'full time' (an American, Joel, and two Rwandan girls, Bernadette and Mireille). Then there's also Sandy, from Britain, who splits her time between Musanze and Congo. Our staff is made up of one (or two?) guards and a maid/cook, Fais, who is spoiling us with delicacies every day (among the dishes we had this week: French potatoes in the oven, several kinds of veggie pies, fish and chicken, rice, salads, pound cake, pizza, pasta with tuna sauce, fruit salads). Needless to say, I gulp down every day as if there's no tomorrow (ironically enough, I will probably end up putting on weight in Africa, after staying slim all those years in the US...) The only thing I miss at our place is beer (I pretty much shocked Fais when I asked how I could have a beer case delivered at home. She came up with an aid, Baptiste, who will take care of this tomorrow). In turn, I was quite shocked the other night when I found out that we also have a shed in the garden, which is full of... gorilla skeletons (we have some American researchers who just showed up in order to study the bones throughout the summer). So yes, pretty serious stuff going around!

Back to food, though: service is slooooow everywhere (I hang out quite a bit in hotel lobbies and at the Volcana Lounge to see football games). Any dish takes way over an hour to be prepared and delivered (the ultimate frustrating experience was in Butembo, Congo, where we had to wait for almost 80 minutes to get our coffee, and about two hours for our omelets and Croque Madame)... Oh well, the idea is to never go to a restaurant when you're really hungry, but to time it well in advance.

I also visited the market (Joel, who has been here some seven months, could only remember where the clothes market was, so I still have to find the veggie one this week). I wanted to buy a bed-side lamp (in my room, the switch for the main lamp is next to the door, which is at the very opposite side of my bed - it gets all the more complicated when you have to come back to bed in the dark, and find your way in through the mosquito net). Anyhow, they had these battery-powered lamps, and some other type which you would have to plug directly (not through an extension cord?!), so I gave up. Half-of-the-market was filled with itinerant tailors, who set up their sewing machines quite randomly, all over the place.

After half-an-hour on the main street (again, I need to stress that it IS paved, unlike all dirt streets I saw in Congo), I almost couldn't breathe anymore from so much dust everywhere. There is this constant flux of people (Rwanda is one of the most densely-populated countries in the world, with 380 people/sq km), and they all seem to drag and push and carry stuff back-and-forth at all times. Of course I am followed everywhere by a cortege of kids, who can only say "Good morning" in English, regardless of the time of the day. There is a new state policy here, though, that is looking to replace French with English as the main non-native language in the country. At the same time, I am trying to start learning some Swahili (not very popular here, but probably the best language to know in Africa overall. And quite simple, according to all accounts...)

As for my job - I am putting together a plan these days, on what stories, pictures and videos I will start producing, once my work and park permits are issued (in order to be able to go up into the Volcanoes National Park.) So yes, I am really settling in here (no problems whatsoever so far).

The only big change: I don't like the Italians anymore (they really have a pathetic squad this year...) So let's keep going beautiful Messi and Argentina! :-)

Logistics

2010-06-17T01:29:00.000-07:00

I do come from a country where we looove stamps and signatures in order to make anything look official, but the DRC is certainly many steps ahead of us. My two-way plane ticket Goma-Butembo-Goma (made out to MR. Sinziana Demian) has four receipts attached to it ($10 go-passes and some redevances) and seven stamps and signatures - for each, of course, I had to go to a different office and stand in another line. Add to that six more stamps on the accompanying Ordre de Mission A4 paper (you cannot travel anywhere without such a document), and I do feel incredibly important (or, alternatively, very suspicious and closely scrutinized) - considering, of course, that these were 'just' 45-minute internal flights.

Landing at Goma was very testing also for a different reason: the moment we set foot on the airstrip, we were literally attacked by some 15 guys, who work for the "Association des Bagagistes". They all wanted to be our porters, although our luggage would be officially taken to the baggage claim area by some other guys. It was quite a challenge to walk up those 20-30 meters to the airport building, since they were quite like vultures fighting over their pray. I did lose my temper a bit (I admit, they were quite scary), and I shouted from the top of my lungs in French, which took them somehow by surprise, especially as they wanted to snatch our tickets and compare the bag tag numbers against the pile of luggage. Luckily our guy from the Goma office, Jackson, came to our rescue, but he did have to dish some $10 for them to share (even if they hadn't really done anything more than fight amongst themselves). Money had to change many hands until some other guy was finally convinced to lift the barrier and let us go.

Trouble would not end there, though: I was, for the first time in my life, denied a border crossing. There was some misunderstanding with my papers between the central immigration office in Kigali and the border point "La Corniche", so after lots of discussions with different officials (I didn't try bribing), I decided I would wait another day in Congo. Goma is right at the border, and DFGFI actually has this amazing house at the lake, so I took it easy and spent a relaxing night there. My papers were cleared first thing the next morning, so I could cross into Rwanda again (after having to fill in a new pile of documents). My new single-entry visa was another $60 (the second time in two weeks we had to pay that amount). Add to that $500 for the Congolese entry visa and work permit, plus a few more hundreds $$$ coming up for a similar Rwandan permit, and the bureaucracy is anything but cheap here.

Heart of Darkness

2010-06-15T02:20:00.000-07:00

We have been stationed in Kasugho (or rather Katoyu – a village next to Kasugho) for the past five days, covering what’s going on at GRACE rehabilitation center: they have here confiscated baby gorillas, whom they are hoping they will some day release back into the wild, as a group. At the beginning we were allowed only one hour a day in the forest, together with the caregivers – who act exactly like mother gorillas for the vulnerable infants – and we had to keep a 7-meter distance, in order not to get them to used to humans (so that in the future they would not just walk up to poachers…) After a couple of days though they got used to us quite a lot, and the male of the group – Kyoma , the future silverback – would come to us and check us out very closely, so then we would get much more time around them.

The forest is AMAZING. I cannot believe my daily routine now consists of walks up there – so green, so lush, so vibrant. It rains quite a bit every afternoon, so the roads get all washed down, and walking is quite difficult, but it is all the more fulfilling when you’ve finally reached your destination. Otherwise, the schedule is quite basic: waking up at 5 or 6 a.m. cram in as much as possible until lunchtime, sit tight for the rain, do some more stuff until 5.30ish, have an early dinner as it’s getting dark around 6.15, go to bed soon after 8. Food here is mostly potatoes, rice and some meat (very chewy, I gave up on it), and the avocado/guacamole bonus, as we have a huge avocado tree in the back yard.

The film crew have behaved quite well – it’s just that they are SOOO loud and annoying at times. Granted, so is the Australian woman who is in charge of this place for another week, and the American wife of the director. When you would just want to take it easy and enjoy the view and the quiet, they just keep on babbling, LOUDLY, so I took off quite a few times to just get some time on my own and enjoy this thoroughly.

The African World Cup also started a couple of days ago. We knew that right away, when we were up in the forest and heard this loud roar – South Africa had scored :-) I watched my first game the following day (Argentina-Nigeria) in the auditorium at the university (there are students from all over Congo, who have come to study conservation here). Needless to say everyone was rooting for the black team, calling me “mzungu” (“the white”) in the process. Of course I would get all excited about Messi’s amazing play and passes, and they would all shush me angrily – but friendly. They took most issue with Maradona – the moment he was on TV, they would all make faces and laugh at him. Luckily Argentina won. Africa would get its first victory the day after, when Ghana scored a late penalty against Serbia. I was not in the TV room at the time, but I knew exactly what was happening, by the loud cheers next door.

We have also visited the local school - Muysa – and saw the children scribble in the dirt outside (notebooks are a very rare commodity here). They blew me off when they sang the gorilla song, with so much energy and dedication. Otherwise, locals are just excited that they get a mzungu who speaks French with them – so I have been asked several times to move here and teach them English, through French. Maybe my next job?!

I am now writing from Butembo, from a fancy hotel with a beautiful courtyard (they are charging me $5 for using the internet half-an-hour)then traveling back to Rwanda (if I can get in - as of now, I don't have a new single-entry visa, so I might have to be in Goma for a while)...

Congo

2010-06-11T06:33:00.000-07:00

As if I didn’t have enough excitement during the first week in Africa, here was Congo on the schedule. We started driving to Goma around 9 a.m., with two vehicles and some 10 people. After passing through beautiful tea plantations, we finally spotted Lake Kivu, on the Rwandan side. The border crossing was something out of a movie – apparently President Kabila was visiting around, so there were guys armed-to-the-teeth roaming everywhere. They also took their time to stamp our passports – I got a seven-day-visa at the La Corniche (wondering how many other Romanians had traveled through that border check-point?!) The way it works is that you pick up only your hand-luggage and cross on foot, while cars take another “lane” and wait you on the other side.

First glimpses of Goma were true to all the stories I had heard of this place: MAD!!! Dirt, bumpy roads, chaotic traffic, would-be-construction everywhere, where the lava river destroyed the city some five years ago. Rhett, Greg and I absolutely wanted to change some $$ into Congolese Francs – apparently we were the only suckers to do so. We went to a bank, but they wouldn’t take the brand new bills (I actually had some Euros, which they wouldn’t accept out-of-principle). Of course some guy showed up out-of-nowhere with stashes of 500-Franc bills, which we thought would last quite long. Wrong again. The first supermarket we entered was quit THE surprise: all prices were listed in FF, which I thought was the local currency, only to find out at the cashier’s desk that they were actually meant in $$. We ended up spending some $85 on some pasta supplies, some crackers, cheese and a bottle of olive oil… (in the next store I refrained from buying tampons at $13 a pack….) Needless to say that everyone was downright paying with American bills (and receiving change the same way), so my nice stash of Congolese Francs disappeared even before I had a chance to take a proper look at the bills…Just in the store area I also had the misfortune of first-in-my-life seeing a person with her nose cut off… I had heard these stories over-and-over again, but I had never quite pictured it: a huge, deep hole in the head, almost inviting to look up into the person’s brains… AWFUL!!!

Luckily DFGFI has this amazing property – “The Lake House” as it is know by, with a wonderful garden down to the water. We spent a few hours there, until Juan Carlos (my boss) arrived from Kigali. We had a couple of interviews scheduled and then went off to dinner downtown – Chez Doga (I think?!), where we had to wait for almost two hours to get some pizzas and some crepes (dishes on the menu were about $15 a piece). As it is getting pitch dark by 6.15, dinner at 8 felt like dinner past midnight.

The next morning we would wake up at 5, in order to catch an 8-o’clock flight to Butembo on the TMK airline. We were five in total (including Frans from Holland), so we spread the luggage weight evenly and only had to pay some $120 extra weight (the camera crew tok that, as they had massive equipment with them). Our tickets an passports and Ordre de Mission had to be carefully examined and stamped by several people (some were very excited to see a Romanian passport and mentioned Ceausescu – I was thinking how it must have been back in the day, with his friendship with Mobuto…) In the middle of the waiting room there was a strip which they were actually digging up with shovels (as if they were going to plant something!), but I refrained from taking pictures, as those armed Congolese everywhere looked anything but friendly.

We boarded this Tupolev plane (the smallest I had ever been in) and off we went, over spewing volcano and jungle land. Quite AMAZING to think that I w actually flying over Congo (!) like that. An hour later we had arrived in Butembo, where two safari cars were waiting for us. Boarding and leaving took forever (with the same line “just five more minutes”), as they were trying to fill them to capacity for the long, expensive journey we would have ahead: anywhere between 4-6 hours through the forest, up to Kasugho. We finally left around noon, and then jumped around in those seats the whole afternoon. The views were fantastic though, so I just sat there, speechless, taking it all in (alongside all the dust). We made it up after 4, to the beautiful GRACE center (which is managed by DFGFI, on extensive lands donated by Congolese mwamis – tribal leaders). It is all meant to accommodate confiscated gorillas for the next God-knows-how-many-years, until they can be released into the wild again. We quickly visited the construction site (which is currently led by two Australians and two New Yorkers) and then sat stunned by the incredible sunset. Food came along (very nice fries, veggies, pineapple empanadas, and some hard-and-impossible-to-cut meat). I was rooming with Sandy, so after some quick showers (hot water is delivered in buckets at the door), I took to the mission to prepare the mosquito nets (making holes in the cardboard ceilings, etc.) We collapsed at 9 p.m., after a LOOONG, but again amazing day.

Out in the Field

2010-06-08T23:39:00.000-07:00

After my one-day rest, the real work-week began: I would spend it out in the field with a film crew, who came here to shoot a documentary about the mountain gorillas. I should mention that the cameraman is Ted Turner’s son (yes, THE Ted Turner), so the expectations were quite high all-around. Here I was, brand new to this organization, all of a sudden “in charge” of these people – who, in all honesty, didn’t really know what they were doing-doing either (i.e. not sure exactly what to focus on).

So here we were, Monday morning in Kinigi, the facility for the captive mountain and Grauer’s gorillas. They are held behind a big fence, and we were not allowed in as we had not yet cleared the quarantine period. So we would go atop on of those big safari vehicles and shoot from there. My mind was constantly running between the journalist in me (I would have loved to conduct some interviews and get some footage with that EXTREMELY expensive and fancy equipment) and the PR-ish person in me (who was actually supposed to coordinate everything from the other side – logos, pertinent interviews, etc.)

We spent most of our Monday and Tuesday morning there, and gradually I and they also caught onto the job better. We interviewed people at the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project as well (they arebased in Musanze, just down the street from us), and then went up to the Bisate clinic (which serves 32 villages and some 20,000 people) to see how they deal with controlling diseases going between humans and wild animals.

There has been excitement all around, of course. On our first day, following a CRAZY storm, a flood of water was gushing down from the mountain, basically ruining a good part of this brand new road. We also happened a few minutes after a horrible accident, where a Burundi car had slammed into a house, destroying half of it in the blow. A day later our driver killed a baby goat. I decided I would never leave the office anymore. The streets are just TOO dangerous, and FULL of thousands of people just running around at l times.

We also had a different kind of experience: the driver took us to a “nice” lunch place – one of those super fancy lodges, where millionaires come and stay before trekking gorillas (if I didn’t mention it already, a tourist permit for a day is $500…) Lunch was indeed a very good buffet (I chose tons of avocado dishes and spinach), but the bill came to almost $100 for three people (we were there maybe for half-an-hour). Of course Rhett Turner paid, but it did indeed feel as almost a shameful waste, thinking of where we were and that we had just killed a family’s goat on the road…

Sunday in the Office

2010-06-06T08:19:00.000-07:00

I finally had a looong 12-hour sleep, precipitated by a mighty tropical rain outside. Quite romantic, actually. It also made me decide against going to the newest local bar (Volcanica) to meet up with friends and colleagues.
Although it was a weekend, I would use every minute of it to familiarize myself with the house and the research center (which is just across the street and has a great wireless connection). So, after unpacking, I did what I haven't done probably ever: go to the office on a Sunday! Quite nice actually... I am sitting in the lounge at the entrance, surrounded by gorilla photos (I already have a hard time learning people's names, I think it will be quite a challenge to learn to differentiate the animals). So far I have only met the two dogs and one cat at the house (I remember only her name - Goma)...

Alright... As disconnected as this feels, I have to write up a TIFF story for Bucharest, so here's how my Sunday night will go by.

Kwita Izina

2010-06-05T07:56:00.001-07:00

Alright, off to Ruhengeri (Musanze, by its new name). We made it out here on the 4th in the evening, ready to plunge into this other new massive event the following morning: Kwita Izina - the naming of the baby gorillas.

In the evening I finally got to my new house - just across the street from the Karisoke Research Center. Dinner was awaiting - apparently we have this fantastic lady looking after the house and cooking French dishes pretty much every day :-) I also met some of my house mates. And then collapsed...

Fast-forward to 6.45 a.m. Saturday morning. I did get my first wake-up call in Africa (of course I did, the man in charge was American :-)...) At 7 I saw my new office for the first time and met a few dozen people who work for Karisoke (needless to say, I couldn't remember many of the names...) Some 15 of us took off to Kingi (some half-an-hour-drive up to the Mountain Volcano Region) in a pick-up truck to attend to big ceremony.

Again, I was designated to be the photographer of the day - so there I was, running around for the next 8 hours... Pictures of the president, of Don Cheadle, of Achim Steiner, etc, etc... plus tons of pictures of many incredibly beautiful people. A great lunch under a huge tent as well. And then some pictures of actual gorillas :-)

I will post some pictures soon. But now I need my nap, before going to this new place (Volcanica) for drinks tonight. I am still not sure how doxy goes with beer, but I cannot really worry about THAT too as well...

Baptism of Fire

2010-06-04T04:10:00.000-07:00

My first full day in Rwanda happened to coincide with the massive World Environment Day conference. At the airport, the midnight before, I found out I had to take photos all throughout the day, starting at 8.30 a.m. I asked the receptionists at the Beau Sejour Auberge where I was staying to give me a wake-up call at 6.45 a.m. They promised they would, but... well, they didn't. So here I was, waking up in the morning, with some ten minutes only to get ready. Luckily the guy who was supposed to pick me up was about an hour late, which gave me a bit of time to look around in the beautiful gardens and have a tea with a gorilla on it :-)

The conference was incredibly interesting, and I somehow lasted though the entire day without collapsing. I actually also went to the gala dinner in the evening, which the president was also supposed to attend. In the end there were "only" ministers present, and some very inspirational people, who have done some amazing things in their countries, in terms of conservation and sustainability.

I finally made it to the hotel right before midnight. I asked for a new wake-up call for the following morning, when I was supposed to attend a breakfast meeting at the DFGFI residence. The receptionist put that down duly, but, of course, they forgot to wake me up. Again. But I already seem to have gotten the hang of it: people are incredibly nice, although slow and late at all times. I guess this is Africa lesson #1. Don't sweat it!!!

Stuck in a country I wasn't even supposed to get to...

2010-06-03T09:26:00.001-07:00

I finally made it on the 10.50 a.m. flight out of Nairobi. We were going to have a short layover in Burundi (Bujumbura) and then, 25 minutes later, arrive in Kigali. Only that… Kenya Airlines (remember, “The Pride of Africa”) thought otherwise. Once we landed in Burundi we were informed that there’s a glitch with the paperwork – that they were supposed to have a technician onboard to sign some release papers, and they didn’t have that person there (!) – which meant we couldn’t clear the Burundi airspace. So, after they force-fed us some courtesy peanuts, they asked us to step down from the plane. We had been grounded. Literally.

We ended up spending the next … 10 hours in this tiny airport, receiving “updates” from this diligent official every half an hour or so. He kept telling us that they are on the phone with Nairobi. Some five hours later it had become clear that the reason was a bit different: apparently Kenya Airline personnel had not been paid on-time, so they decided to go on an impromptu strike, in another country…

OK, so there we were, a few dozen people from two planes (some of us were Kigali-bound, some Nairobi-bound). Of course soon we were just bound to each other. Tired, jet-lagged, hungry (they would give us something to eat only some eight hours later…). We were told we might have to go by bus to Rwanda, but then this option was also scrapped.

LATE at night they came up with a brilliant solution: we would all board the next plane to Kigali, that was supposed to arrive from Nairobi… So we flew out after 10 p.m. and finally landed in Rwanda shortly before midnight. I had, at that point, traveled for about 60 hours… The planned overlapping with Julie, the girl I was going to replace at Dian Fossey Fund, had failed miserably. She was due to fly back to the U.S. early the following morning…

To add to the excitement, I was informed upon arrival that the next day I would have to help cover a huge international event, starting at 8 a.m. in the fancy Serena Hotel. I pretty much collapsed under the mosquito net soon after midnight, in the city of les milles collines…

Below the Equator

2010-06-01T22:04:00.001-07:00

We crossed the Equator this morning at 5.08 a.m., on a Kenya Airways ("Pride of Africa") flight. If I didn't quite believe I was embarking on this journey, it all became clear when the TV screens onboard showed the distance and time remaining to ... 'safari' (i.e. 'destination' in Swahili). I also received sugar, salt and pepper containers with elephants and giraffes on, so there was no doubt anymore. I was in Africa alright!

I am now alternating blogging and dozing off in a smelly transit lounge in Nairobi. I will be here for a few more hours, before flying first to Burundi and then to Rwanda. Let the adventure begin!

En Route to Africa

2010-06-01T07:38:00.000-07:00

I left Cluj on May 31, hoping I would catch all my four flights and get to Rwanda the morning after. As luck has it, a major storm in Bucharest kept us on the ground long enough so that I would miss my connecting flight from Amsterdam to Nairobi. I have been re-booked for tonight, and I will most likely have an extra flight to get onto - Nairobi-Bujumbura - and then arrive to Kigali tomorrow early afternoon. It seems like I will have to hit the ground running, as there are a ton of big operations taking place both in Rwanda and Congo in the very near future. I am also trying to get used to taking antibiotics daily, as after a Lariam pill last week I decided that the face tingling was too upsetting, so I switched to doxycycline.